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Land Acknowledgements signal a responsibility to recognize, respect, and affirm the irreducible and ongoing relationship between Indigenous people and the Land. How can cultural institutions embrace that responsibility by preceding and following their respective Land Acknowledgements with meaningful reparative and restorative actions?
Amplify’s next virtual Alternate Currents panel discussion on Thursday, January 28th, from 7-8pm, brings together president and CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, Marisa Miakonda Cummings; critic, curator, and art historian, Risa Puleo; and artist, educator, and Amplify’s 2020 Indigenous American Artist Support Grant recipient, Steve Tamayo for a candid discussion about intentional methodologies for constructing land acknowledgements and the work required to honor them.
Join us for this conversation, moderated by Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Joslyn Art Museum, Annika Johnson, by registering on Eventbrite or Facebook. You will receive a confirmation email with a link to join the discussion on Zoom after registering. And don’t forget to visit the Alternate Currents blog page to read up on the panel topic before the discussion!
Alternate Currents opens space for conversation, ideation, and action around national and international discussions in the arts that have a profound impact at the local level. Alternate Currents exists both on- and off-line in the form of a dedicated online resource, conversation series, and working group.
Free and open to all. Virtual programming is presented with the support of the Nebraska Arts Council and the Nebraska Cultural Endowment.
About the Panelists:
Marisa Miakonda Cummings: Marisa Cummings (Miakonda) is Umóⁿhoⁿ and belongs to the Buffalo Tail Clan of the Sky people as well as the Walker and Springer families. She is a relative to many and is constantly re-learning language, seed keeping, food systems, and re-building relationships with human and non-human relatives. She has worked in higher education for over 15 years and is dedicated to indigenous models of governance, education, food systems, ceremonies, and sovereignty. She studies and teaches knowledge rooted in matriarchy and advocates for dismantling systems of oppression that impact our Native communities, including resource extraction and personal violence. Currently, Marisa is the president and CEO of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center in Minneapolis, MN.
Marisa holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in American Studies from the University of Iowa and a certificate in American Indian/Native Studies and a minor in African American World Studies. She recently earned her Masters in Tribal Administration and Governance from the University of Minnesota Duluth. Prior to her work at the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center, Marisa served as the Director of Native Student Services at the University of South Dakota. She has also served as the Chief of Tribal Operations for the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska and Iowa.
Risa Puleo: Risa Puleo researches the entanglement between the Americas and Europe during the early modern period with a focus on how indigenous American objects and people were important to the formation of the Wunderkammer and Early Modern Museum through their collection as objects of wonder, scrutiny, spectacle, and study. Risa came to the early modern period after working as a curator of contemporary art. Her interests include sites of presentation, mechanisms of display, patronage, collection, the formation of institutions of art and empire, and the parallel development of the museum, prison, zoo, library, hospital, university, and museum.
Risa's writing has been published in Art21 magazine, Art in America, Art Asia Pacific, ArtLies, ArtPapers, Glasstire, Hyperallergic, and Modern Painters, among others. She has curated exhibitions at The Blanton Museum of Art, The University of Texas at Austin, where she was Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art; Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha; Charlotte Street Foundation, Kansas City; ArtPace, A Foundation for Contemporary Art, San Antonio. Her exhibition Walls Turned Sideways: Artists Confront the American Justice System, opening at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston in August of 2018, is founded on her research into the museum and prison as sister institutions developing from the same cultural logic.
Steve Tamayo: Steve Tamayo draws upon his family history as a member of the Sicangu Lakota tribe. His fine arts education (BFA from Sinte Gleska University), along with his cultural upbringing, have shaped him as an artist, historian, storyteller and dancer. Steve provides activities during his residencies that include art and regalia making, drumming, powwow dance demonstrations and lectures on the history, symbolism and meaning behind the Native customs and traditions.
Steve has considerable experience developing curricula and teaching both youth and adults, including work with the Native American Advocacy Program of South Dakota, Omaha Public Schools, Minnesota Humanities Council and Metropolitan Community College of Omaha. He also leads groups of students and teachers on cultural excursions on the Rosebud reservation, introducing them to the rich culture and way of life that is slowly being revived among native communities. He is a past Governor’s Heritage Art Award recipient, an honor bestowed for his contributions in the arts and Native American culture.
Tamayo has had work exhibited at The National Museum of the American Indian, in Washington, DC, The Kaneko in Omaha, NE, The Great Plains Museum in Lincoln, NE, RNG Gallery in Council Bluffs, IA. His most recent work included painting buffalo robes and set design for Willie Nelson and Neil Young on the occasion of their concert for Bold Nebraska in Neligh, NE.
About the Moderator:
Annika Johnson: Annika Johnson is Associate Curator of Native American Art at the Joslyn Art Museum where she is developing installations, programming, and research initiatives in collaboration with Indigenous communities. Her research and curatorial projects examine nineteenth-century Native American art and exchange with Euro-Americans, as well as contemporary artistic and activist engagements with the histories and ongoing processes of colonization. Annika received her PhD in art history from the University of Pittsburgh in 2019 and grew up in Minnesota, Dakota homelands called Mni Sota Makoce.