AMST 284 - Decolonizing the Exhibition: Critical Approaches to Contemporary Indigenous Art

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

This course consists of two areas of inquiry: the study of the impact and importance of Indigenous art from a Native American Studies perspective and the research and exhibition of Inuit works on paper from the Edward J. Guarino Collection at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. We begin by exploring Indigenous art through culturally and tribally specific perspectives in order to challenge the ethnographic lens that has traditionally examined and catalogued Native artists. Through a Native American Studies framework, we approach Indigenous art not through western categories of artifact or craft, but as artworks that stress the continuance of Indigenous peoples in direct conversation with the non-Indigenous world. From this understanding, the class constructs an exhibition to be installed in the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at the end of the semester. Students research and interpret Inuit works from the collection, design the exhibition installation, write the exhibition catalogue and create the accompanying website. Ms. McGlennen.

Two 75-minute periods.