NATIVE AMERICAN ART CURATORIAL CONVENING

In June 2021 and June 2022, Ucross hosted the first two sessions of the Native American Art Curatorial Convening (NAACC), a historic gathering that convened many of the nation’s leading curators of Native art. In June 2023, Ucross partnered with the Denver Art Museum to host the Ucross Symposium: Curating Native American Art.

Over three years, the NAACC aims to address the pressing need for Native representation in museums and visual arts organizations, develop new standards and practices involving Indigenous collections, and consider thoughtful mentorship for junior curators and emerging arts professionals from Native communities.

The NAACC is led by Heather Ahtone (Choctaw/Chickasaw Nation), Senior Curator at First Americans Museum, and John Lukavic, Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Native Art at the Denver Art Museum. The impressive group of participants also includes leaders and visionaries in the field, including:
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• Jill Ahlberg Yohe, Associate Curator of Native American Art at Minneapolis Institute of Art
• Kathleen Ash-Milby (Navajo Nation), Curator of Native American Art at Portland Art Museum
• Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse, Director of Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Native Art, Curator of Northwest Native Art at Burke Museum, and Associate Professor of Native Art at University of Washington
• Christina E. Burke, Curator of Native American and Non-Western Art at Philbrook Museum of Art
• Karen Kramer, Curator of Native American and Oceanic Art and Culture and Director of Native American Fellowship Program at Peabody Esse x Museum
• Patricia Marroquin Norby (Purépecha), Associate Curator of Native American Art at Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Jami C. Powell (Osage Nation), Curator of Indigenous Art at Hood Museum of Art and Dartmouth College

Ucross Trustee Scott Manning Stevens (Akwesasne Mohawk), Director of Syracuse University's Native American and Indigenous Studies program, is the NAACC board liaison.

The Ucross NAACC is funded in part by the Andy Warhol Foundation of Visual Arts.

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Ucross Foundation acknowledges with respect that it is situated on the aboriginal land of several Indigenous communities, including the Cheyenne, Crow, and Lakota nations. Indigenous people continue to live in this area and practice their teachings and lifeways. Today, this region remains an important place for many Indigenous peoples. As a Wyoming institution, we recognize and respect this historical context and are working to build reciprocal relationships with the Native nations on whose lands we are situated. In partial fulfillment of that commitment, Ucross established Fellowships for Native American Visual Artists in 2017 and Native American Writers in 2020.