October 23, 2010 2:00 pm – 3:00 pm
Museum of Contemporary Native Arts, 108 Cathedral Place, Santa Fe, NM 87501
In Session: Conversations with Contemporary Native Artists and Authors is an extension of the MoCNA/IAIA’s Vision Project bringing together participating artists, authors, curators, art historians, anthropologists, and cultural workers to discuss their contribution to the Project and the field of contemporary Native Arts. In Session conversations supports MoCNA’s goal of establishing an indigenous arts discourse that reflects the vibrancy and potency of field at its most current level of activity.
In this installment, Metis artist, activist, and historian, Dylan Miner exchanges ideas with MoCNA’s Vision Project Manager, Will Wilson (Diné) artist and photographer.
Dylan Miner (Métis) was raised in rural Michigan and spends his time traversing the contested and colonial borders of North America. An artist, activist, and historian, his work has been exhibited at the University of Arizona, the National Museum of Mexican Art, the Native American Rights Fund, the United Nations, the Institute of American Indian Arts, La Galería de la Raza, and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, amongst countless other spaces. In 2010 Dylan has had five solo shows and was recently awarded an Artist Leadership Grant from the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution). Next year, his solo show “Provisional…” will be at Urban Shaman Gallery in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In addition to gallery exhibitions, Dylan’s acclaimed illustrations have been included in Studs Terkel’s Working: A Graphic Adaptation (New Press) and Wobblies: A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World (Verso). His writing has appeared in Third Text, CR: The New Centennial Review, and Aztlán: A Journal of Chicano Studies, as well as numerous edited volumes. Engaged in developing new forms of artistic practice, Dylan is a founding-member of the artists’ cooperative Justseeds. He is presently an assistant professor at Michigan State University.
William (Will) Wilson is a Diné photographer who spent his formative years living in the Navajo Nation. Born in San Francisco in 1969, Wilson’s complex and nuanced oeuvre fully-developed while studying photography at The University of New Mexico (MFA, writing a dissertation on the photography of Milton S. Snow), as well as during his undergraduate studies at Oberlin College. In 2007, Wilson won the Native American Fine Art Fellowship from the Eiteljorg Museum and in 2010 was awarded a prestigious grant from the Joan Mitchell Foundation. Wilson is also an educator and has held visiting professorships at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Oberlin College, and the University of Arizona. Currently, Wilson manages The National Vision Project, a Ford Foundation funded initiative at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, NM.
This project is made possible in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Call 505.428.5909 or email membership@iaia.edu for more information.
