The Art of Time: Documenting History through Native Art

How have Native cultures documented the passage of time? And what can we learn from Native art forms about preserving moments that are important to us?

Join Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit), assistant professor at the University of Washington’s Information School, for an exploration of the artful documentation of time, as seen through familiar and less familiar artistic traditions within Native communities.

The documentation of time and major events is not a new phenomenon for Native communities, who have logged cataclysmic changes for thousands of years. Temporal documentation includes winter counts from the Plains, totem and story poles from the Northwest coast, and pottery from the Southwest. In addition to these pre-contact forms, the talk will include current examples of Native art documenting social, political, and environmental concerns such as missing and murdered Indigenous women, the impact of commercial fishing, and pipeline protests.