Description

Making History: IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts is the inaugural collaboration between the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) and the University of New Mexico Press (UNM Press). Established in 1929, the University of New Mexico Press is the fourth largest university press west of the Rocky Mountains. UNM Press Senior Acquisitions Editor Elise M. McHugh describes the publication of Making History as “an exciting first.”

Making History exposes the central role of IAIA as an epicenter of the dynamic and under-studied contemporary Native Arts movement (1962 to present). This unique resource not only guides educators and the public in how to interpret key interpretative American Indian art themes such as the body, dance, and visual icons using Indigenous methodologies, it also charts contemporary Native arts origins, drawing from the wisdom of elders, artists, poets, and educators.

Making History features poetry by Alex Jacobs (Mohawk) and Elizabeth Woody (Navajo, Warm Springs, Wasco, Yakama), and original essays by David Wade Chambers, Charles A. Dailey, Lara M. Evans (Cherokee), Stephen C. Fadden (Mohawk), Ryan S. Flahive, Suzanne Newman Fricke, Alex Jacobs (Mohawk), Tatiana Lomahaftewa-Singer (Hopi/Choctaw), Robert Martin (Cherokee), Nancy Marie Mithlo (Chiricahua Apache), Patsy Phillips (Cherokee), John Paul Rangel (Mestizo, Apache, Navajo, Spanish descent), Jessie Ryker-Crawford (White Earth Chippewa), and David Warren (Santa Clara Pueblo). This valuable resource contains two-hundred works of art, many that have never been photographed or circulated prior, and twenty-four archival photographs from IAIA’s nearly sixty-year history.