The mission of the Bard Center for Indigenous Studies is to develop a network of public programming focused on arts, education, and advocacy in Native American and Indigenous studies.
Upcoming Events
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11/25Monday3:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST/GMT-5
Stevenson Library
The Center for Indigenous Studies began its work in November 2022 following a transformational gift from the Gochman Family Foundation.
“We are immensely fortunate to receive this visionary gift which has enabled the Center, whose public programming is brilliantly stewarded by Brandi Norton (Iñupiaq), to significantly expand commissions in support of innovative Indigenous artists and thinkers, develop new engagement and curriculum for all generations, and provide research opportunities for students throughout the Bard network,” said Christian Ayne Crouch, director of the Center for Indigenous Studies.
Christian Ayne Crouch Participates in “Unsettled Landscapes” Roundtable Discussion
Christian Ayne Crouch, dean of graduate studies and associate professor of history and American and Indigenous studies at Bard College, participated in a roundtable conversation, sponsored by the Bard College Center for Indigenous Studies, with Alan Michelson, an artist and Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, and Dr. Scott Manning Stevens, who is a citizen of the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation and curator of the exhibit Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape, on display at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill.
Jeffrey Gibson. Photo by Brian Barlow
Bard Faculty Member Jeffrey Gibson Represented the US at the 2024 Venice Biennale
if I read you/what I wrote bear/in mind I wrote it ™
—Layli Long Soldier MFA ’14, Whereas
—Layli Long Soldier MFA ’14, Whereas
Jeffrey Gibson, artist in residence at Bard College, represented the United States at the 60th Venice Biennale Arte in 2024. Gibson, who is a member of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians and of Cherokee descent, is one of the first Indigenous artists to represent the country at the Biennale. The Biennale Arte 2024 was curated by Adriano Pedrosa, who received the 2023 CCS Bard Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence. The title of Gibson’s exhibition, the space in which to place me, is an excerpt from the poem Ȟe Sápa by Layli Long Soldier MFA ’14, a citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation.
The title of the October 24–26, 2024, convening is an excerpt from Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas, courtesy of the author and Graywolf Press.
The title of the October 24–26, 2024, convening is an excerpt from Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas, courtesy of the author and Graywolf Press.
Land Acknowledgment
In the spirit of truth and equity, it is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are gathered on the sacred homelands of the Munsee and Muhheaconneok people, who are the original stewards of the land.
Today, due to forced removal, the community resides in Northeast Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We honor and pay respect to their ancestors past and present, as well as to future generations, and we recognize their continuing presence in their homelands. We understand that our acknowledgment requires those of us who are settlers to recognize our own place in and responsibilities toward addressing inequity, and that this ongoing and challenging work requires that we commit to real engagement with the Munsee and Mohican communities to build an inclusive and equitable space for all.
Emily Johnson/Catalyst, Being Future Being: Land/Celestial, 2022. Photo by Maria Baranova. Courtesy of New York Live Arts. Pictured: Emily Johnson
Inaugural Performances
The Center for Indigenous Studies held its inaugural public presentations on Bard’s Annandale-on-Hudson campus in the summer of 2023. Performances by influential artists Ya Tseen and Emily Johnson/Catalyst were presented in partnership with the Fisher Center at Bard College and the Hessel Museum of Art, respectively. Ya Tseen (“be alive” in Tlingit), the electro-soul music project of artist Nicholas Galanin, performed on Saturday, June 24, at the Fisher Center’s Spiegeltent. Being Future Being: Land/Celestial, an outdoor, multi-scalar, movement-based performance work by Emily Johnson/Catalyst, took place on Saturday, July 22, on the grounds of the Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS Bard).
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Center for Indigenous Studies’ Three-Day Convening at the Venice Biennale Featured in Hyperallergic
“The convening felt like an energizing disco, a kaleidoscopic exploration of Native identities in all their rich dualities, contrasts, and dichotomies: familiar and unfamiliar, past and future, joy and sorrow, detailed and monumental.”
Bard Professor Christian Ayne Crouch Participates in “Unsettled Landscapes” Roundtable Discussion
The event was sponsored by the Bard College Center for Indigenous Studies and took place at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, where the exhibition Native Prospects is on display.