The Power Plant

What is the value in considering internal nation-state and Indigenous relationships on the international scene through artistic expression? And what, if any connection to ‘rights’ do Indigenous peoples have in a shifting international political terrain post-Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? Jolene Rickard discusses Indigenous artistic pulse points in 2017 including Candice Hopkin’s curatorial work for documenta 14 in Greece, Jimmie Durham: At the Center of the World exhibition at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles and Ngahiraka Mason’s curatorial intervention for the inaugural Honolulu Biennial 2017 on the theme “Middle of Now | Here”. Can this kind of international art world attention divulge anything missed in more direct political engagement?

Rickard is a visual historian, artist and curator interested in issues of Indigeneity within a global context. Currently, she serves as Associate Professor in the History of Art and Art Departments at at Cornell University, where she is Director of the American Indian Program. Projects include serving as advisor for Sakahàn: 1st International Quinquennial of New Indigenous Art, National Gallery of Canada (2013); Ford Foundation Research Grant (2008-11), Te Tihi Scholar/Artist Gathering, New Zealand, (2010); Rebecca Belmore: Fountain (with Jessica Bradley), Morris and Helen Belkin Gallery and Kamloops Art Gallery (2005); and, co-curator for the inaugural exhibition for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Washington (2004). She attended London College of Printing (1977); earned her BFA at Rochester Institute of Technology; received a Master’s degree at Buffalo State (1991); and, completed a Ph.D. in American Studies with a Native component at SUNY Buffalo (1996). Rickard is a member of the Turtle Clan in the Tuscarora Nation (Haudenosaunee).