The Center of Southwest Studies (Center) is pleased to present Given Time: Sensory Aesthetics of Reclamation, an exhibition that explores Indigenous relationships to land and how it intersects with issues of sovereignty, environmental sustainability, colonialism, and identity through the presentation of four films by prominent Native artists, alongside select objects from the Center of Southwest Studies’ own museum collections. The exhibition is guest curated by Megan Alvarado-Saggese, PhD and features film works by Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians), Angelo Baca (Hopi/Diné) and New Red Order [Jackson Polys (Tlingit), Zack Khalil (Ojibway) and Adam Khalil (Ojibway)].
Given Time: Sensory Aesthetics of Reclamation, which is made possible with a grant from the City of Durango Arts & Culture Lodger’s Tax Fund, will open with a reception on Thursday, October 24 at 4:30-6:30pm and the exhibition will run through April 24, 2025.
Notably, Given Time signifies a new and innovative direction for the Center by prominently featuring moving image as a central medium in the museum gallery space for the first time. The content of the video works presented foregrounds Indigenous voices and knowledge systems through recollections of personal and shared histories. Film, a vivid mode of direct storytelling, offers an immersive experience that puts us in connection with the artists’ vision, memories, and perspectives.
Visitors will also engage with a unique and varied curated selection of objects from the Center’s museum collections by such artists as: Tony Abeyta (Diné), Berdine Begay (Diné), RC Gorman (Diné), Marietta Juanico (Pueblo of Acoma), Mabel Myers (Diné), Fritz Scholder (La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians), Robert Dale Tsosie (Picuris Pueblo/Diné) and Sam Two Bulls (Oglala Sioux-Pine Ridge Reservation).
About the Films
Two single-channel films by Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellow Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) layer imagery, sound, and text to traverse Indigenous histories and contemporary experience. As a photographer, in addition to a video artist, Hopinka is known for developing new forms of cinema that center the perspectives of Indigenous people, interweaving documentary-style representations and abstract imagery with vibrant and varied color palettes. Hopinka’s films have screened at various festivals, including Sundance and the Toronto International Film Festival, and been exhibited widely in notable venues such as the 2017 Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York, NY), Museum of Modern Art (New York, NY), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York, NY) and the Walker Art Center (Minneapolis, MN) among others. Hopinka is currently an Assistant Professor of Art, Film, and Visual Studies at Harvard University.
Sunflower Siege Engine (2022) weaves together moments of resistance from documentation of the Indigenous led occupation of Alcatraz to the reclamation of Cahokia, the site of the largest pre-Columbian community in what is now the United States. Hopinka considers these moments of repatriation of the ancestors as “gestures on the nature of the reservation system, and where sovereignty and belligerence intersect and diverge.”
Kunįkaga Remember Red Banks, Kunįkaga Remembers the Welcoming Song (2014) features the recollections of Hopinka’s grandmother of the Red Banks, a Ho-Chunk village site near present day Green Bay, WI. The area holds significance as the site of French explorer, Jean Nicolet’s, landing in 1634, the first settler to step foot in what is now known as Wisconsin. The film oscillates between personal and shared history, as well as practices and processes of remembrance.
Exploring a case of postmortem justice, The Violence of a Civilization Without Secrets (2017) by Jackson Polys (Tlingit), Zack Khalil (Ojibway) Adam Khalil (Ojibway)—collectively known as the core contributors to the “public secret society” New Red Order—educates viewers on the “Kennewick Man.” Also known as the “Ancient One” by the Colville, Yakama, Nez Perce, Umatilla and Wanapum, the nearly 9,000-year-old remains were found in 1996 by the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. The film urges us to reflect on Indigenous sovereignty and to consider the value and accuracy of oral histories when faced with the sometimes blind certainty of forensic anthropology.
New Red Order is a public secret society of rotating membership—including core contributors Adam Khalil, Zack Khalil, and Jackson Polys—that collaborates with self-described “informants” to create video, performance, and online works that bring attention to the fetishization and misappropriation of Native culture. NRO speculates on the colonial desire to at once commodify Native stereotypes and to “play Indian,” while simultaneously seeking to erase Indigeneity. Named to critique the fraternal organization, the Improved Order of the Redmen and the Degree of Pocahontas, founded in Baltimore in 1834, the New Red Order seeks to re-center Indigenous perspectives.
Shash Jaa’: Bears Ears (2016) is a film by cultural activist, scholar, and filmmaker Angelo Baca (Hopi/Diné) that addresses Indigenous rights and environmental stewardship. The documentary follows the journey of the Bears Ears Inter-Tribal Coalition (Hopi, Navajo Nation, Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation, Ute Mountain Ute Tribe, and Pueblo of Zuni) as they successfully advocated for the protection and designation of 1.36 million acres of culturally significant ancestral lands across southern Utah.
Baca, an Assistant Professor of History, Philosophy, and the Social Sciences at the Rhode Island School of Design, centers his research in Indigenous international repatriation, Indigenous food sovereignty, and sacred lands protection. His work reflects a commitment to collaborative research with Indigenous communities on equal and respectful terms and a long-standing dedication to both Western and Indigenous knowledge. Through his films and activism, Baca continues to focus on the protection of Indigenous communities by empowering local and traditional knowledge keepers in the stewardship of their own cultural practices and landscapes. Additionally, Baca is a board member of Durango-based Conservation Lands Foundation.
About the Guest Curator
Dr. Megan Alvarado-Saggese is an Assistant Professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at Fort Lewis College. Her teaching and research focus on Indigenous artistic practice in the Americas, bringing Latin American Indigenous visual cultures into conversation with Native American scholarship. Taking a hemispheric approach to Indigenous studies, Dr. Alvarado-Saggese looks at intersections and resonances within Indigenous intellectual thought and strategies of resistance across the Americas.
About the Center of Southwest Studies
The Center of Southwest Studies shares the mission of Fort Lewis College to promote inclusive, experiential learning that fosters innovation, growth, and community engagement. As an academic museum, archives, and library dedicated to the diverse cultures, histories, and environments of the Southwest, the Center of Southwest Studies provides collections-based learning opportunities and internships for undergraduate students, preserves, and provides access to its diverse research collections, and offers exhibits and educational programs for the College and the public.
Fort Lewis College Land Acknowledgment
We acknowledge the land that Fort Lewis College is situated upon is the ancestral land and territory of the Nuuchiu (Ute) people who were forcibly removed by the United States Government. We also acknowledge that this land is connected to the communal and ceremonial spaces of the Jicarilla Apache (Apache), Pueblos of New Mexico, Hopi Sinom (Hopi), and Diné (Navajo) Nations. It is important to acknowledge this setting because the narratives of the lands in this region have long been told from dominant perspectives, without full recognition of the original land stewards who continue to inhabit and connect with this land. Thank you for your attention and respect in acknowledging this important legacy.