Native American Art Collection Annual Lecture featuring Kathleen Wall

This lecture explores Land Identity through the lens of personal experience, federal policies, and material culture. It examines how Indigenous people navigate cultural hybridity, assimilation, and the systemic forces that have sought to sever their ties to the land. Through a personal narrative, the lecture reflects on growing up between two distinct cultural worlds—one shaped by the pressures of assimilation, the other rooted in Pueblo traditions. Federal policies such as relocation, boarding schools, and allotment are analyzed as mechanisms of displacement that have disrupted the sustainability of Native identity and land belonging.

Kathleen Wall resides in the Pueblo of Jemez, New Mexico. She is a mother of three children who have grown up observing her dedicated artistic practice. Taught pottery as a child by her mother and aunts—who themselves were taught by their mother—Wall carries on the matrilineal tradition of clay artistry. Although grounded in ancestral processes and techniques, her art exists at the intersection of the traditional and the contemporary. Her work is present and reflective, shaped by her ever-evolving identity and relationship to her Pueblo heritage.

Best known for her clay sculptures, Wall continues to challenge her creativity through mixed media. Her current practice is closely intertwined with the concepts of Land Identity, inherited belonging, and the sustainability of Native communities. The themes she explores are drawn directly from her lived experiences as a Pueblo/Anishinaabe woman.

Wall’s art is a living, evolving entity—grounded in the ongoing process of reclaiming Native identity. She has received fellowships from the School for Advanced Research and the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts, as well as the New Mexico Governor’s Award. Deeply rooted in the Pueblo of Jemez, Wall remains an active member of her tribal community. Intimately linked to her art, she plans to continue creating, sharing, and deepening her understanding of her connection to clay.

Presented with American Sign Language interpretation

Schedule

• 6 p.m. Lecture, Marvin & Betty Danto Lecture Hall
• 7 p.m. Reception, FJC Dining Rooms