Objects of Exchange examines the material culture of the period for visual evidence of historical flux and shifting social relations within Native groups as well as between them and the surrounding settler nations of Canada and the United States. It focuses on objects—variously construed as art, artifact, and commodity—that challenge well-established stylistic or cultural categories and that reflect patterns of intercultural exchange and transformation. Drawing on the remarkable collections at the American Museum of Natural History, this exhibition reveals the artistic traces of dynamic indigenous activity whereby objects were altered, repurposed, and adapted to keep up with changing times.

Aaron Glass
Assistant Professor, Bard Graduate Center
Introduction

Mique’l Icesis Askren
Art History Doctoral Student, UBC Leader, The Git Hayetsk Dancers
Michael Dangeli
Nisga’a/Tlingit/Tsimshian Artist
Opening words/song

Kathryn Bunn-Marcuse
Lecturer, Division of Art History, University of Washington; Managing Editor, Bill Holm Center for the Study of Northwest Coast Art, Burke Museum
Heavy Metal: The Weighty Meanings of Northwest Coast Jewelry

Megan Smetzer
Independent Art Historian
Creating Beauty from Pain: The Ambivalence of Tlingit Beadwork

Mique’l Icesis Askren
Art History Doctoral Student, UBC Leader, The Git Hayetsk Dancers
Choreographing Photography and Stone: Issues of Practice and Praxis in Leading the Git Hayetsk Dancers

Judith Ostrowitz
Independent Scholar
It Looks Like Manga: The Cosmopolitanism of Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

Mique’l Icesis Askren
Art History Doctoral Student, UBC Leader, The Git Hayetsk Dancers
Michael Dangeli
Nisga’a/Tlingit/Tsimshian Artist
Cultural Presentation