Unraveling: Reimagining Colonization in the Americas BIG IDEA Project & Visual Arts Exhibition

Unraveling: Reimagining Colonization in the Americas March 8–May 22, 2019 A BIG IDEA project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts

Center hours & location: Mon–Fri, 9am–5pm Sats in Mar, 11am–5pm 191 Fifth Street East, Ketchum, Idaho Sun Valley Center for the Arts P.O. Box 656, Sun Valley, ID 83353 208.726.9491 • sunvalleycenter.org

Cover: Marie Watt, Trek (Pleiades), 2014, reclaimed wool blankets, thread and embroidery floss, courtesy the artist and PDX CONTEMPORARY ART Back Panel: Nicholas Galanin, Let Them Enter Dancing: Knowledge, 2018, monoprint, courtesy the artist Introduction Panel: Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers), Study for portrait of Bonnie Prince Johnnie Sidney, Pharaoh of Novum Eboracum and co-leader of the Sidney and St. Marc Expedition the Pacific Coast of North America, 1791, 2014, ink and pencil on paper, courtesy the artist Marie Watt, Skywalker/Skyscraper (Flag), 2012, reclaimed wool blankets and thread, courtesy the artist and PDX CONTEMPORARY ART

110 N. Main Street, Hailey, Idaho 208.578.9122

Interior, left to right, top to bottom: Marcos Ramírez ERRE and David Taylor, DeLIMITations Monument 01, 2015, color photograph, courtesy the artists Umar Rashid (Frohawk Two Feathers), Study for portrait of Lucretia ­Theroux, wife of Johnnie and Queen of Novum Eboracum, before her untimely assassination, 1791, 2014, ink and pencil on paper, courtesy the artist Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, “A chakacamayuc (bridge master),” The First New Chronicle and Good Government, 1615, collection of The Royal Library, Copenhagen Still from Dakota 38, dir. Silas Hagerty, 2012

Unraveling: Reimagining ­Colonization in the Americas March 8–May 22, 2019 A BIG IDEA project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts In American textbooks, the colonial history of the Americas is often presented as a straightforward story of European conquest of indigenous cultures. It is a story of settlement and expansion by the Spanish, Portuguese, English, Dutch and French as these European powers competed for possession of American territory—lands already occupied for millennia by native peoples. The real story, however, is anything but straightforward. This history is fraught with conflict and negotiation, wars and treaties, sales and transfers of enormous swaths of land, usually without input from the

original occupants. Even today the theme of Manifest Destiny runs through this version of history, obscuring the stories of those who were dispossessed by the colonial process.

What does this history omit? What are the possibilities for reimagining or reinterpreting colonial history from the indigenous point of view?

This BIG IDEA project offers an opportunity for retelling the colonial history of the Americas, offering up alternative perspectives and stories based on both fact and fiction.

L ECT U R ES David Grann “The Killers of the Flower Moon: The Arc of Justice”

Thu, Mar 14, 6:30pm Church of the Big Wood, Ketchum $20 / $30 nonmembers $15 students / educator (limit one per educator) David Grann is a writer for The New Yorker and the best-selling author of The Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon. Grann’s latest book, Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, is a true crime tale that unravels one of the most sinister crimes and racial injustices in American history. With more than 30 weeks on The New York Times nonfiction best-seller list, it was a finalist for the National Book Award. Known for his compelling and irresistible stories, Grann has been called “the man Hollywood can’t stop reading,” with four of his New Yorker articles adapted for the screen.

Unraveling: Reimagining Colonization in the Americas March 8–May 22, 2019 A BIG IDEA project of the Sun Valley Center for the Arts

M US EU M E X HIBITIO N

FA MILY DAY

Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Aleut) creates work that considers the intersection of native and non-native cultures in the U.S. The exhibition features an installation of two video pieces that invite viewers to reimagine colonization not as a one-way process, but as a dynamic system of cultural exchange. The installation also includes monoprints from the series Let Them Enter Dancing.

Several years ago, Marcos Ramírez ERRE and David Taylor resurveyed the U.S.-Mexico border as it existed in 1821. Running from the Gulf of Mexico to what is now the demarcation between Oregon and California, the border shifted radically; enormous areas of what had been Mexico were ceded to the U.S. Along their journey, Ramírez ERRE and Taylor placed obelisks similar to those that mark the miles of the current border and photographed them in the sites they would have occupied in 1821. The resulting installation, DeLIMITations, features one of these monuments, a video work and 48 photographs of monuments sited along their route.

Umar Rashid (also known as Frohawk Two Feathers) has created paintings and works on paper that reimagine the history of colonization in the Americas. His elaborate and often funny narratives, which feature invented nations and recurring characters, offer viewers alternative visions of the struggle for land and power on American soil. For this exhibition, Rashid has created new works that illustrate his own imagined history of clashes and cultural collisions between native peoples and European colonizers in the American West.

The work of Marie Watt (an enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians) draws on ideas from history, indigenous principles, feminism and her desire to use her practice to build community. Many of her projects incorporate the woolen blanket. For Watt, blankets are loaded with history and symbolism, used as a ritual objects, given as gifts, or used to cover and protect.

How I Remember It: A Chance to ­Consider Another Perspective

Exhibition Opening Celebration and Gallery Walk Fri, Mar 8, 5–7pm FREE at The Center, Ketchum Join us as we celebrate the opening of ­Unraveling.

Evening Exhibition Tours

Sat, Apr 13, 3–5pm FREE at The Center, Ketchum Geared for children 3–12 years old.

Come enjoy a free, fun, friendly and activitypacked afternoon at The Center with your ­children, grandchildren or family members!

We will spend the afternoon offering up alternative perspectives to stories based on both fact and fiction, and we’ll consider how one’s own perspective may affect how a story is told. Join us anytime between 3 and 5pm. ­— Participate in story time at 3:30 or 4:30 — Create a clay medallion that represents your

personal journey — Play games and participate in activities that

connect to the art in the museum — Share a treat and a story with your family Generously sponsored by Spur Community Foundation.

T EEN WO R KS H O P Imagining New Landscapes: Watercolor Workshop with Jennie ­Kilcup

Sat & Sun, Apr 13 & 14, 10am–3pm The Center, Hailey $10 pre-registration required This workshop is geared toward teens who have little or no watercolor experience. Students will learn the elements necessary to master several watercolor techniques. They will then incorporate these techniques into vibrant finished ­pieces ready for framing! Students will take home a complete watercolor kit to continue practicing the techniques taught in the class.

Generously sponsored by Joyce B. Friedman in memory of Norman Friedman.

The Sun Valley Center for the Arts would like to acknowledge the Shoshoni and Bannock People and their Homelands here in the Wood River Valley, and their use of these lands, Past, ­Present and Future.

Thu, Mar 21, Thu, Apr 18, and Thu, May 16* 5:30pm FREE at The Center, Ketchum Enjoy a glass of wine as you tour the exhibition with The Center’s curators. *May 16 tour will begin at The Center before heading to the Community Library's Regional History ­Museum for a tour of their exhibition: Who Writes History? Frontier Voices, Native Realities An examination of the co-existence between Native Americans and non-native newcomers to the Wood River Valley in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Regional History Museum, Mar 8–Jun 29.

Generously sponsored by an anonymous gift and American Capital Advisory.

The Consequences of Colonialism: A Conversation with Gay Bawa Odmark on the 1947 Partition of India

Tue, Mar 19, 6pm FREE at The Community Library Join The Center’s Curator of Visual Arts, Courtney Gilbert, for a conversation with Gay Bawa Odmark about the aftermath of colonialism in another part of the globe—India. Born in the city of Lahore (in what is now Pakistan), Odmark lived through India’s 1947 Partition (into India and Pakistan), experiencing firsthand the upheaval that followed British withdrawal from the region after nearly a century of British Crown rule.

Odmark will share memories of her childhood in Lahore, the violence of Partition, and her family’s experiences fleeing Lahore for England before settling in Kolkata. The talk will include photographs from Odmark’s family albums as well as images of artwork she has made in response to her memories of life in India.

Art History Lecture “The World Turned Upside Down: Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala’s The First New Chronicle and Good Government” with Dr. Courtney Gilbert Tue, Apr 16, 5:30pm The Center, Ketchum $10 / $12 nonmember At the beginning of the 17th century, an indigenous Andean man, don Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala, wrote a nearly 1,200-page letter to King Philip III of Spain. The letter gave the king a history of Andean culture and traditions before the Spanish conquest. Guaman Poma outlined the conquest and the effects of Spanish colonial rule on the Andean world, which he believed had been turned upside down by Spanish administrators. The letter then proposed a new form of government that would incorporate preconquest Andean practices. In addition to his written text, Guaman Poma included 398 full-page line drawings. This lecture focuses on these fascinating drawings, which p ­ rovide a glimpse into life in the Viceroyalty of Peru.

“This Land is Home” by Leo Ariwite

Thu, Apr 25, 6pm FREE at The Center, Ketchum Pre-registration recommended Leo Ariwite was born and raised in Salmon, ­Idaho, and is a Northern Shoshoni descended from the band of Sacajawea. His forebears, including Chief Tendoy, were forced to leave Salmon in 1907 and relocate to the Fort Hall Reservation. Ariwite, a Tribal Court Judge of the Fort Hall Reservation, will share stories of his homeland and how this land and its people were impacted by colonization.

FIL M S Dawson City: Frozen Time

Thu, Mar 21, 4:30 and 7pm Magic Lantern Cinemas, Ketchum $10 / $12 nonmember A work of resurrected living history, Dawson City: Frozen Time transports viewers in a manner few films achieve. Director Bill Morrison uses clips from hundreds of highly combustible nitrate silent-movie reels that were unearthed in the Yukon River outpost of Dawson City in 1978, as well as archival photos, to present a ghostly history lesson about northern Canada’s turn-ofthe-century gold rush. From the fires that burned Dawson City to the ground, to the indigenous populations pushed aside by settlers, to the Hollywood and business luminaries who once lived there, this film is an awe-inspiring and thoughtprovoking study. Running time: 2 hours.

Dakota 38

Thu, Apr 18, 4:30 and 7pm Magic Lantern Cinemas, Ketchum $10 / $12 nonmembers In the spring of 2005, Jim Miller, a Native American spiritual leader and Vietnam veteran, found himself in a dream riding on horseback across the Great Plains of South Dakota. Just before waking, he arrived at a riverbank in Minnesota and saw 38 of his Dakota ancestors hanged. At the time, Miller knew nothing of the largest mass execution in U.S. history, ordered by Abraham Lincoln on Dec. 26, 1862. Four years later, Miller and a group of riders retraced the 330-mile route of his dream on horseback from Lower Brule, South Dakota, to Mankato, Minnesota, to arrive at the hanging site on the anniversary of the execution. This is the story of their journey—the blizzards they endure, the native and non-native communities that house and feed them along the way, and the dark history they are just beginning to uncover. Running time: 1 hour 58 minutes.

Sun Valley Center for the Arts sunvalleycenter.org