The Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University announces the opening of its new exhibition, Our People, Our Land, Our Images: International Indigenous Photography, on Thursday, January 26, 2017, at 5:00 p.m. Opportunities to view Indigenous peoples through the eyes of Indigenous photographers are rare and recent.
This exhibition presents the work of photographers from the United States, Canada, Peru, and New Zealand, including newly discovered nineteenth-century pioneers, established contemporary practitioners, and members of the next generation of emerging artists.
Reflecting contemporary trends, the photographs vary in style, from straightforward documentary accounts to aesthetically altered images combining overlays and collage. However, the works stand united in exploring their makers’ connections to their lands, communities, and traditions.
The multiplicity of perspectives represented by the photographs and accompanying artists statements demonstrates the longevity and continuing vitality of Native traditions and answers the overdue and continued need to expand knowledge of Indigenous self-presentation in photography.
In conjunction with the exhibition at the Picker Art Gallery, a display of works by Indigenous artists in the permanent collections of both the Picker and the Longyear Museum of Anthropology will be on view. Additional programming includes a screening of short films by filmmakers Shirley Cheechoo (Cree), Daniel Janke, and Shelley Niro (Mohawk) on Tuesday, February 21, 2017, at 7:00 p.m. in Golden Auditorium at Colgate University.
This event is held in conjunction with the Alternative Cinema series and is a collaboration among the Department of Art and Art History, the Film and Media Studies Program, and the Student Film Society at Colgate University.
A lecture by exhibiting artists Shelley Niro (Mohawk) and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole/Muskogee/Diné), director, C. N. Gorman Museum, and associate professor, Department of
Native American Studies, University of California, Davis, will take place on Thursday, March 30, 2017, at 4:30 p.m. in Golden Auditorium at Colgate University.
This event is sponsored by the Picker Art Gallery with additional support from the Native American Studies Program. Both Niro and Tsinhnahjinnie will participate in curricular activities with students and faculty while visiting campus.
Guest curator Veronica Passalacqua of the C. N. Gorman Museum at the University of California, Davis, originally organized Our People, Our Land, Our Images in conjunction with a conference for international Indigenous photographers held at the museum.
For the past 15 years, Passalacqua has been active in the field of Native North American art as a writer, curator, and scholar. Most recently, she facilitated the donation/repatriation of a significant private Lakota collection of artifacts to the Buechel Memorial Lakota Museum, Pine Ridge Reservation, South Dakota. Previous curatorial work includes exhibitions at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, England; the Navajo Nation Museum, Window Rock, Arizona; and the Barbican Art Gallery, London.
The exhibition is toured by ExhibitsUSA, a national program of Mid-America Arts Alliance. ExhibitsUSA sends more than twenty-five exhibitions on tour to more than one hundred small- and mid-size communities every year. Mid-America is the oldest nonprofit regional arts organization in the United States. More information is available at www.maaa.org and www.eusa.org.
Our People, Our Land, Our Images has previously been on view at the Tarble Arts Center, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL (2011–2012); the Sordoni Art Gallery, Wilkes University, Wilkes-Barre, PA (2013); the Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (2014); the Museum of the Southwest, Midland, TX (2014); and the Oklahoma State University Museum of Art, Stillwater, OK (2016–2017). In July 2017, the exhibition will travel to the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts in Kalamazoo, MI.
EXHIBITION OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, January 26, 2017
5:00–8:00 p.m., Colgate University, Dana Arts Center, Picker Art Gallery
5:30 p.m., opening remarks by Anja Chávez, director of University Museums; Sarah Horowitz, curatorial assistant, Picker Art
Gallery and Longyear Museum of Anthropology; and Colgate University students Kalliope Mott ʼ17 and Natalie Ramirez ʼ19
6:00 p.m., student-led exhibition mini-tours
RELATED EVENTS
Tuesday, February 21, 2017
Our People, Our Land, Our Images: International Indigenous Photography Film Screening featuring short films by filmmakers Shirley Cheechoo (Cree), Daniel Janke, and Shelley Niro (Mohawk)
7:00 p.m., Colgate University, 105 Little Hall, Golden Auditorium
This event is held in conjunction with the Alternative Cinema series and is a collaboration among the Department of Art and Art History, the Film and Media Studies Program, and the Student Film Society at Colgate University.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Lecture by exhibiting artists Shelley Niro (Mohawk) and Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole/Muskogee/Diné), director, C. N. Gorman Museum, and associate professor, Department of Native American Studies, University of California, Davis
4:30 p.m., Colgate University, 105 Little Hall, Golden Auditorium
Sponsored by the Picker Art Gallery with additional support from the Native American Studies Program at Colgate University
All events are free and open to the public.
PICKER ART GALLERY AT COLGATE UNIVERSITY
The Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University is a teaching and collecting museum that engages local and global communities through innovative exhibitions, interdisciplinary research, dynamic outreach, and meaningful experiences with art across cultures, time, and media. The gallery’s permanent collection includes nearly 11,000 objects, among them approximately 8,000 works of art on paper, 1,400 photographs, 900 paintings, and 300 sculptures, primarily from the twentieth century. It is located on the Colgate University campus, off Lally Lane, on the second floor of the Paul Rudolph–designed Dana Arts Center.
The Picker Art Gallery is open Tuesdays–Fridays, 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.; Saturdays and Sundays, noon–5:00 p.m.; and the third Thursday of every month, 10:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m. The Picker is closed Mondays and major holidays. Admission is free and open to the public. For more information, visit www.colgate.edu/picker or call (315) 228-7634.
Images attached:
Image 1: Pena Bonita (Apache/Seminole, born 1948), Skywalker, 2006, chromogenic color print, 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.64 cm), courtesy of the artist. © Pena Bonita.
Image 2: Martín Chambi (Quechua, 1891–1973), El Gigante de Paruro y Victor Mendivil, Cusco, 1925, modern black-and-white reprint, 2005, 20 x 16 in. (50.8 x 40.64 cm), courtesy of the Martín Chambi Family Archives, Cusco, Peru.
Image 3:
Image 4: Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie (Seminole/Muskogee/Diné, born 1954), This Is Not a Commercial, This Is My Homeland, 1998, platinum lambda print, 33 x 28 in. (83.82 x 71.12 cm), courtesy of the artist. Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie.