Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts, and Village Symposium

On November 3 and 4, 2023, the Colby College Museum of Art and its Lunder Institute for American Art hosted a two-day symposium, in conjunction with the Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts, and Village exhibition, featuring exhibition collaborators, artists, curators, and scholars of Native American art, American art, and art of the American West.

Together, participants reflected on the relationship between art, shared histories, and lived experiences, incubating new paths within art history, art practice, and the museum field. Topics included how Native artists delve into historical collections to assert visual sovereignty, how to activate museum collections in new and reparative ways, collaborations between institutions and Native communities, and more.

Brian Vallo (Acoma Pueblo) served as governor of Acoma Pueblo in 2019–21, formerly directed the Indian Arts Research Center, and was the founding director of the Sky City Cultural Center and Haak’u Museum. He has spent more than thirty years working in museum development, repatriation of ancestors and cultural patrimony, cultural preservation, the arts, and tourism.