“Indigenous Performance Politics: An Analysis of Works by Kent Monkman, Spiderwoman Theater Company, Rebecca Belmore and James Luna”
ART&, Ackland Art Museum
Hear from visiting scholar Shanna Ketchum – Heap of Birds (Diné and Navajo), whose research focuses on contemporary Native American/Indigenous art, theater, and performance. The talk is presented at the Ackland as part of the Art History Lecture Series organized by UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of Art and Art History. This talk is co-sponsored by the Department of American Studies. Space is limited; register for a free ticket.
Shanna Ketchum-Heap of Birds is a citizen of the Diné/Navajo Nation. In 2022, she completed her PhD at Middlesex University, London, focused on contemporary Native American/Indigenous visual artists and theater and performance studies. Recent essays were published in Artforum International, Wired Italia, and Art Review magazine and in Tony Fisher and Eve Katsouraki (eds.), Beyond Failure: New Essays on the Cultural History of Failure in Theatre and Performance, Routledge, 2018. See her website https://dinehwriter.art. Ketchum-Heap of Birds has lectured at Artists Space in NYC, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Nanyang University in Singapore, and Skype/Zoom lectures for the Barcelona Facultat De Geografia; Història Universitat De Barcelona; Museu D’art Contemporani De Barcelona (MACBA) and Shape: A Virtual Artist Residency sponsored by Vinegar Projects: An Artists-Run Space. Ketchum-Heap of Birds also curated Suffer, Dance, Stand: Native Survival with Edgar Heap of Birds, Douglas Miles, and Warren Realrider in 2022 at OK #1 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Dr. Ketchum-Heap of Birds currently teaches at the University of Central Oklahoma and is board president of Spiderwoman Theater Company (the longest-running Native American feminist theater group in the USA).
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Ackland Art Museum as part of their current exhibition, Past Forward: Native American Art from Gilcrease Museum. The exhibition is open from February 16 to April 28, 2024.
Contact: Lyneise Williams, williale@email.unc.edu
Image: Kent Monkman, Dance to Miss Chief, 2010, video