Hosted by Washington Humanities
How have Native cultures documented the passage of time? And what can we learn from Native art forms about preserving moments that are important to us?
Join Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit), assistant professor at the University of Washington’s Information School, for an exploration of the artful documentation of time, as seen through familiar and less familiar artistic traditions within Native communities.
The documentation of time and major events is not a new phenomenon for Native communities, who have logged cataclysmic changes for thousands of years. Temporal documentation includes winter counts from the Plains, totem and story poles from the Northwest coast, and pottery from the Southwest. In addition to these pre-contact forms, the talk will include current examples of Native art documenting social, political, and environmental concerns such as missing and murdered Indigenous women, the impact of commercial fishing, and pipeline protests.
Dr. Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) is an assistant professor and the inaugural Jill and Joe McKinstry Endowed Faculty Fellow of Native North American Indigenous Knowledge at the University of Washington’s Information School. She is also an independent curator who engages public scholarship by working with tribal, state, federal, and international institutions and organizations to promote Native artists and their work. Recent exhibitions include Sho Sho Esquiro: Doctrine of Discovery (2021) at the Bill Reid Gallery in Vancouver, B.C., Preston Singletary: Raven and the Box of Daylight (2018) at the Museum of Glass; Alison Bremner (Marks): One Gray Hair (2017) and Storme Webber | Casino: A Palimpsest (2017) at the Frye Museum in Seattle. Belarde-Lewis holds a B.A. in cultural anthropology from the University of Arizona, an M.A. in museology and a Ph.D. in information science from the University of Washington.