Decolonizing the Museum: an Indigenous Curator’s Thoughts

Join us on Wednesday, February 5 for the first lecture of the year in the Vincent and Agatha Thursby Distinguished Scholars Lecture Series. Dr. heather ahtone, senior curator at the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City, will present  “Decolonizing the Museum: An Indigenous Curator’s Thoughts.” Considering recent discourse about decolonizing institutions and Indigenizing spaces, ahtone will use the First Americans Museum in Oklahoma City as a model for discussing how changes can be implemented in a nationally significant institution.

The primary focus of heather ahtone’s research and writing has been to examine the intersection between Indigenous cultural knowledge and contemporary art. Dr. ahtone has worked at the Institute of American Indian Arts Museum (now MoCNA), the Southwestern Association of Indian Arts (Santa Fe, New Mexico), on contract with Ralph Appelbaum Associates (New York), and in several positions at the University of Oklahoma, where most recently she served as the curator of Native American art at OU’s Fred Jones Jr. Museum of Art for over six years.