Research Symposium: Miranda Belarde-Lewis
Indigenous Curation: How Community Voices, Tribal History and Native Art Can Inform Information Science
There has been a concerted effort by some in the museum field to incorporate Native scholars, artists and community members as curators and consultants of exhibitions about Native peoples. As mainstream museums work toward including Native voices, and as Native artists continue to assert their visual sovereignty, the role of the curator has been questioned, reformulated and challenged.
This presentation examines the research and community engagement required to create “Preston Singletary: Raven and The Box of Daylight,” an exhibition at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. Both the artist and the curator are Tlingit people, adding a layer of community accountability as they presented the iconic Tlingit story.
Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) is an Assistant Professor at iSchool at the University of Washington and an Independent Curator. Miranda researches how Native arts are used to protect, document and reclaim indigenous ways of knowing, in physical and online spaces, and she researches how Native communities are leveraging social networking sites for activism and the assertion of cultural protocols during ceremonial events. Belarde-Lewis has curated exhibitions for the Frye Art Museum in Seattle and the Museum of Glass in Tacoma. She has worked with tribal, city, state and federal museums to create exhibits, public programming, educational content and symposia which challenge and educate both indigenous and non-indigenous audiences.