L to R: Rosita Worl, Rick West, Tim Coulter, Laura Harris, Walter Echo-Hawk, Luci Taphonso

Allan Houser Art Park

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.