During the 2018 SWAIA Indian Market weekend, please visit IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) for its own special events. Here’s a listing of events from Thursday, August 16–Sunday, August 19, 2018. All events are free and open to the public.

Thursday, August 16, 5–7 pm, Allan Houser Art Park

Summer Exhibitions Opening Reception

Three new exhibitions will open on the first floor including Meeting the Clouds Halfway: Terrol Dew Johnson and Aranda\Lasch, Expanding Horizons: Darren Vigil Gray, and Holly Wilson: On Turtle’s Back. Featuring DJ Celeste Worl (Tlingit) during the opening reception.

Friday, August 17, 5–6:15 pm, Allan Houser Art Park

CineDoom: Narratives of Native Film and Beyond—Panel

MoCNA is pleased to present six innovative films made by Southwestern based American directors and their teams of writers, producers, editors, and actors in the Helen Hardin Media Gallery. Presented works are multifaceted conceptually and formally. They offer a dynamic collection of film, video, and digital media and involve levels of metaphors and narrative concepts around tribal contemporary identity, humor, and music.

This film program was curated by local Navajo filmmaker Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo), who originally premiered this film series at an outdoor film venue in Albuquerque as a way of celebrating, acknowledging and supporting his fellow film comrades’ newest works. This panel of filmmakers explores the current state of Native film in the Southwest. Panelists include Sally Kewayosh (Walpole Island First Nation), Jason Asenap (Comanche), Nanobah Becker (Diné), Daniel Edward Hyde (Navajo/Belize), and moderated by Blackhorse Lowe (Navajo).

Saturday, August 18, 9 am—5 pm, South Courtyard

Santa Fe’s Public Radio KSFR 101.1 FM

Santa Fe Public Radio KSFR 101.1 FM will have a live radio feed at the museum. Featuring giveaways and live radio all day. Radio personality Tara Gatewood (Isleta Pueblo) of Indigenous Foundation will be live from the booth from 2–5 pm.

Saturday, August 18, 9–10 am, Anne and Loren Kieve Gallery, and 10:30–11:30 am, Allan Houser Art Park (Panel)

Gallery Sessions with Artists Terrol Dew Johnson, Holly Wilson, Darren Vigil Gray, and Ian Kuali’i

Artists Terrol Dew Johnson (Tohono O’odham), Holly Wilson (Delaware Tribe of Western Oklahoma/Cherokee), Darren Vigil Gray (Jicarilla Apache/Kiowa Apache) and Ian Kuali’i (Native Hawaiian/Mescalero Apache) will discuss current exhibitions in the galleries and participate in a panel discussion on their respective art practices with introductions by IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) Chief Curator Manuela Well-Off-Man.

Saturday, August 18, 1–2:30 pm, Allan Houser Art Park

N. Scott Momaday and the Sense of the Sacred—A Native Poet and Artist, a Universal Voice—Book Reading + Discussion

Please join author N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa) and W. Richard West (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma), President and CEO, Autry Museum of the American West, Dr. Joëlle Rostkowski, and Jill Momaday (Kiowa) in a dynamic discussion about N. Scott Momaday and the Sense of the Sacred-A Native Poet and Artist, a Universal Voice written by Dr. Joëlle Rostkowski that brings a deeply informed international perspective on the work and life of Momaday, UNESCO Artist for Peace, poet, novelist, storyteller, playwright, and painter.

In 1969, Momaday was the first Native American to win the Pulitzer Prize for House Made of Dawn, and he paved the way for the recognition of several generations of gifted Native American writers. Momaday’s voice has contributed to a better understanding and greater visibility of Native American cultures, communities, and traditions beyond regional and national borders. In his capacity of Artist for Peace at UNESCO he became an emblematic figure of the cultural renaissance of Native Americans and of Indigenous rights on the international scene. This book puts in evidence Momaday’s role as an emissary of Native values and his contribution to intercultural dialogue. Richly illustrated, it presents some of his most significant drawings, paintings, and etchings. The combination of poetry and visuals brings to light the complementarity of both modes of expression in Momaday’s work. This book will be for sale after the panel.

Saturday, August 18, 3–5 pm, Allan Houser Art Park

Contemporary Indigenous Discourse Series in Partnership with the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM) + Creative Santa Fe: Native Arts and Policy: Resilience and Rights—Panel

Native Arts and Policy: Resilience and Rights will recognize the increasing importance and relevance of the cultural community and art within a national and international platform. How can tribal archives, libraries, museums, and artists help in implementing international human rights standards into American law and policy? This is generationally a challenge for Indigenous institutions across the country and throughout the world. September 13, 2017, marked the tenth anniversary of the United Nations approval of the landmark United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Around the world, over 350 million indigenous peoples in 90 worldwide countries celebrated the endorsement of this landmark UN declaration, taking efforts to begin implementing human rights standards laid out in UNDRIP into domestic laws and policies of nations around the world. Indigenous peoples worldwide are standing at the dawn of Indigenous history, the human rights era. It will be the responsibility of all Indian Country, our political leaders, legal scholars, activists, cultural institutions, and artists to fully implement these indigenous rights ethics into our domestic law and policy.

An introductory poem will be read by Navajo Nation Poet laureate Luci Tapahonso. Panelists include Walter Echo-Hawk (Pawnee) Author and Attorney, Laura Harris (Comanche) Executive Director, Americans for Indian Opportunity, Robert (Tim) Coulter (Potawatomi) Founding Director, American Indian Law Resource Center, Dr. Rosita Worl (Tlingit) President of Sealaska Heritage Institute. Moderated by W. Richard West (Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma), President and CEO, Autry Museum of the American West.

Sunday, August 19, 11 am–12 pm, Allan Houser Art Park

The Sea of Grass—Book Reading and Dialogue

Join Pawnee Tribe of Oklahoma citizens, author Walter Echo-Hawk and Kevin Gover, Director of the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, in a lively discussion on historical fiction novel The Sea of Grass: A Family Tale from the American Heartland. Echo-Hawk’s newest novel is inspired by real people and events that were shaped by the land, animals, and plants of the Central Plains and by the long sweep of Indigenous history in the grasslands. Major events are presented from a Pawnee perspective to capture the outlook of the Echo-Hawk ancestors. The oral tradition from ten generations of Echo-Hawk’s family tell the stories of the spiritual side of Native life and give voice to the rich culture and cosmology of the Pawnee Nation. The author will sign books after the reading.

Author, attorney, and legal scholar Echo-Hawk practices law in Oklahoma. He was “The Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals” at the University of Hawaii (2018). He is the author of The Light of Justice: The Rise of Human Rights In Native America and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2013), In The Courts of the Conqueror: The Ten Worst Indian Cases Ever Decided (2010), and the award-winning Battlefields and Burial Grounds (1994).

Saturday and Sunday, August 18—19, 9 am–5 pm, Helen Hardin Media Gallery

CineDoom: Narratives of Native Film and Beyond (55:30 minutes)

MoCNA is pleased to present six innovative films made by Southwestern based Native American directors.

Contact and More Information

For more information please contact MoCNA Membership and Program Manager Andrea R. Hanley (Navajo) at (505) 428-5907 or ahanley@iaia.edu.