Landscape of Abstraction: George Morrison’s Legacy

This panel explores the work of George Morrison (Ojibwe), whose work is featured in Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time, a deeply influential artist who challenged imposed expectations of what Native American artists could and should produce.

Panelists include exhibition curator Sháńdíín Brown (Diné); scholar and curator Dr. Scott Manning Stevens (Akwesasne Mohawk); and Anya Montiel, PhD (Mestiza/Tohono O’odham), curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. Moderated by Laura Vookles, Chair of the HRM’s Curatorial Department. The talk will deeply engage with Morrison’s approach to Abstract Expressionism and place, mirroring the interplay of lived experience and spiritual and cultural memory. The program includes an audience Q&A and a gallery visit to view Morrison’s work Collage × Landscape.

Live ASL Interpretation will be provided for the panel discussion.

#HRMEarthDay

Sháńdíín Brown (Diné) is a curator, PhD student, and scholar specializing in Native American fashion, jewelry, contemporary Indigenous art, and Indigenous feminism. She has held curatorial roles at major institutions, including the Heard Museum, Penn Museum, and the RISD Museum, where she was the first Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow and later Assistant Curator of Native American Art. Her co-curated exhibitions include Unbroken: Native American Ceramics, Sculpture, and Design (2022–23) and Being and Believing in the Natural World (2022–23).

Dr. Scott Manning Stevens (Akwesasne Mohawk) is a distinguished scholar and curator specializing in Indigenous resistance and representation in museums. He holds a BA from Dartmouth and an MA/PhD from Harvard. In 2024, he curated Native Prospects: Indigeneity and Landscape at the Thomas Cole National Historic Site. A professor and director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Program at Syracuse University, he has also taught at Harvard and Arizona State. His research has been supported by fellowships from the Ford Foundation, Mellon Foundation, Fulbright, and Radcliffe Institute. His forthcoming books examine the appropriation of Native culture in museums.

Anya Montiel, Ph.D. (Mestiza/Tohono O’odham) is a curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, specializing in Indigenous arts and cultures. She has curated Ancestors Know Who We Are (2022) and co-curated The Future of Clay (2024). A Yale PhD and UC Davis graduate, she has contributed to Art in America and First American Art Magazine and authored exhibition essays for institutions including Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

Supported in part by the Anita K. Hersh Philanthropic Foundation, Freedom View Foundation, and Ellen Kozak.

Support provided by Sarah Lawrence College and the Mellon Foundation.