Oct. 14 is Indigenous People’s Day, and the University of Oregon is celebrating at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art Special Hours event and campus art walk. The museum, normally closed on Mondays, will be open and free to the public on Oct. 14 from 11 a.m to 5 p.m to showcase a new Indigenous art exhibit by Steph Littlebird. The exhibit is part of the museum’s multi-year series “Art Acknowledgement of the Land,” and it will give students the opportunity to learn more about the culture that they may not realize surrounds them.
This free event will begin at 1 p.m. with the campus art walk, featuring Littlebird and Danielle Knapp, the JSMA’s McCosh Curator and Pacific Northwest art specialist. The tour will kick off in front of the Knight Library, during which anyone interested will be given the opportunity to hear from and ask questions about the indigenous art located around campus.
Littlebird, a member of Oregon’s Grand Ronde Confederated Tribes, has been collaborating with the University since the beginning of 2023 Students can see her currently displayed works on the outside of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, as well as in various other locations around campus, including the Museum of Natural and Cultural History.
She has a diverse background working on different Indigenous projects throughout Oregon, including her nationally recognized curation of the exhibit “This IS Kalapuyan Land,” which debuted at the Five Oaks Museum in Portland in 2019.
Littlebird said she’s heavily invested in her work with the university and is excited to see how her collaboration with the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art will impact Indigenous-identifying students on campus, as well as the general student body.
“When the university approached me to do work with them, they had the intention of really trying to enrich the student’s experience, and that was so inspiring to me because I really love to support teachers and students,” Littlebird said. “As someone who came from a more complicated family background, it was really fascinating to be able to collaborate with educators and students because I really believe in these institutions and how they can transform people’s lives.”
Her dedication to assisting the university in its endeavor to bring more awareness to indigenous culture has helped spur interest in the JSMA’s exhibits, which has in turn led to more students taking advantage of everything that the JSMA has to offer.
The event will highlight the main question, “How can I acknowledge the land?” and give students the opportunity to speak with Littlebird about her exterior niche, titled “We’ve Always Been Here,” her interior lobby art piece, titled “You Are Here,” as well as the main exhibit, titled “The Land We Have Always Known,” displayed at the JSMA.
Littlebird’s digital artwork challenges the stereotypes of cultural appropriation that have been experienced by Indigenous communities within Oregon, and it calls attention to the many other cultural inequalities that indigenous tribes across the country have faced.
“More than anything, it feels like a culmination of this collaboration amongst a bunch of passionate people who love what they do, and for me, it’s also about honoring the community that I come from,” Littlebird said. “Ultimately, the University of Oregon is on Kalapuyan land, and my curation work that I am known for is really about raising awareness of people in the Willamette Valley who just don’t know the history of the land and how large the Kalapuyan presence really is.”
The art walk will be followed by a New Cartographies Draw-In from 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m. in the Ken Kesey Classroom (room 201N) in the Knight Library, during which participants will get to draw over a number of maps that were collected specifically for this event. After the Draw-In event is finished, head to the opening of “The Land We Have Always Known” and Littlebird’s Artwork Celebration from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in the Paulson Reading Room in the Knight Library.
Visitors will have the opportunity to view Littlebird’s latest exhibit and celebrate the prominent Indigenous culture of Oregon. “This exhibit looks really interesting. I always hear about how our campus was built on top of Indigenous land, but I feel like I never see any representation of that,” Daniel Margolis, a junior studying film and business, said. “I’ve seen some of the artwork on the outside of the Jordan Schnitzer but I never knew what it represented.
The Indigenous student population at the University of Oregon makes up a smaller percent of the undergraduate population, however, the students who do identify as part of Indigenous tribes from across the country seem to be excited about this project. “I hadn’t heard about this exhibit because I’ve been busy with school work, but I’d love to go,” Emmaline Melton, a senior student and member of the Blackfeet Confederate Tribe in Browning, Montana, said. “I’m excited to see that Indigenous people are getting more recognition on campus.”
This event has and will continue to bring awareness to the prominence of indigenous culture on campus as well as highlight the still-strong resilience of the Kalapuyan people.
“These banners and their declarations stand as a reminder of the lasting Indigenous presence on this land,” Littlebird said in an interview with coordinators at the JSMA. “The Kalapuyan people have lived here, since time immemorial – since before memory. Natives have acted as caretakers of this land for thousands of years. Today, the Kalapuyas remain a resilient and thriving culture and so their role as Indigenous placekeepers continues.”
Her determination for this project shows just how passionate she is about her work, and it is sure to make an impact on every person who has the opportunity to experience it.