The Institute of English and American Studies welcomes Professor Jonah Winn-Lenetsky (Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, NM), who will be a Fulbright Scholar at the EUF from November 2024 to July 2025. 

His opening lecture on "Performing Indigenous Futures Through Humor and Irony: Decolonizing Land Art from Jeffrey Gibson to Ajijaak on Turtle Island" will take place on Tuesday, December 3rd, 10-12 a.m. in OSL 248. Everyone is cordially invited.

Abstract:

How can artists and activists use humor and performance to undermine government despotism, shed light on inequity and decolonize activism? How can utopian futures be performed and manifest in a present that is bleak and oppressive? Theatre and Performance Art by Indigenous North Americans has been performing a counter-narrative to extractive Capitalism and neo-colonial land exploitation for decades. Contemporary Indigenous artists, activists and performers are opening a dialogue around the role of art and performance through humor and through re-envisioning our relationship with the environment. This talk focuses on several Indigenous performance artists who use humor, play and temporal experimentation to examine political violence, historical trauma and our current moment of climate emergency and violent nationalism. Through looking at the work of diverse North American Indigenous artists from Kent Monkman to James Luna, Dancing Earth Creations and IBEX Puppetry this talk will tour some contemporary examples of this groundbreaking movement.