Art After Drought
The Politics of Representation in the Era of Climate Change
Sherwin Bitsui - Jaune Quick-to-See Smith - Will Wilson in conversation
Thursday, April 2nd, 2015
English Lecture Hall 001, 4:00-6:00 PM
This panel discussion features three avant-garde Indigenous artists — Will Wilson (Diné), Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Salish/Kootenai), and Sherwin Bitsui (Diné) — in dialogue with Texas Tech faculty, students, and community members. The conversation will consider the proposition that art and the environment are inextricable: that art participates in the ecosystems we inhabit and alter; and that thinking ecologically means thinking aesthetically.
The discussion will also be animated by an attention to ongoing US colonization of Indigenous people, lands, and ecosystems. Given that American empire has always been environmental, we’ll consider how Indigenous art can rethink politically-loaded assessments of environmental value: what’s beautiful or fertile, what’s empty, what’s possible.
Following the panel discussion, from 6:00-8:00 PM, there will be a reception for art exhibitions of the photographs of Will Wilson (Landmark Gallery) and parintings and lithographs by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (Folio Gallery) in the School of Art.
Both the panel discussion and reception are free and open to the public.
Art After Drought is made possible with support from the Texas Tech Cross-Cultural Academic Advancement Center (CCAAC), the Ryla T. & John F. Lott Endowment for Excellence in the Visual Arts administered through the School of Art, the Department of English, the Creative Writing Program in the Department of English, The Humanities Center of Texas Tech University and Landmark Arts in the School of Art.