Saturday, September 10 | 1pm | $15, Limited Capacity
Located in CCA’s Muñoz Waxman and Spector Ripps gallery spaces
Join us for a curator exhibition tour of Self-Determined: A Contemporary Survey of Native and Indigenous Artists featuring an artist spotlight with Chaz John, led by curators Danyelle Means (Oglala Lakota) and Kiersten Fellrath. This tour will provide a comprehensive and insightful overview of the powerful and deeply layered bodies of work included in the exhibition, the curator’s vision, and the opportunity to learn more about Chaz John’s process from the artist himself.
This is the first in a series of curator-led tours featuring different artists in-person from the exhibition for each event. Sign up for our newsletter to stay informed.
About the Exhibition:
Self-Determined: A Contemporary Survey of Native and Indigenous Artists is a group exhibition featuring thirteen artists creating profound work in various media including film, installation, photography, sound, beadwork, and studio arts. Self-Determined centers the artist and their practice, the social and political issues important to them, their relationships to community, their mode of expression, and the ways in which they identify. The title Self-Determined references a Nixon-era policy that gave tribes within the United States the ability to make decisions for themselves about cultural renewal and reclamation, governance, economic development, and education—the only United States government policy not based on assimilation or genocide.
About the artist
Chaz John (Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska / Mississippi Band Choctaw / European) presents a vibrant collection of images, both real and imagined, that comprise a poetic narrative of cultural iconography, raw dream images, and a personal quilt of archetypal patterns that make up the collective American psyche.
About the curators
Danyelle Means currently serves as the first Indigenous Executive Director of the Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a position she has held since 2021. She has previously held leadership roles at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian. Means was raised on the Rosebud Reservation and is a proud member of the Oglala Lakota tribe in South Dakota. Throughout her career, she has centered advancement and support for BIPOC professionals and artists.
Kiersten Fellrath is the Carl & Marilynn Thoma Art Foundation’s Programs Coordinator at the Center for Contemporary Arts (CCA) based in Santa Fe. She is passionate about creating space and opportunities for emerging artists and their communities. She serves on the board of the Fire Island Artist Residency (FIAR). Her former role as Curator and Vice President of the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection included responsibilities in curatorial, acquisitions, education, programs and collection management.
She received her MFA in Contemporary Art from Christie’s Education, New York, but considers her time working with artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith to have been the most formative. She is of European (Scottish, Irish, Scandinavian) descent and lives in Nambe Pueblo, NM with her partner.
