Artist and art historian Jolene Rickard was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native American Art Studies Association (NAASA). She is an associate professor of history of art and visual studies in the College of Arts and Sciences and associate professor in the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program (AIISP) in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.
NAASA cited Rickard, a citizen of the Skarù·ręʔ / Tuscarora Nation (Hodinöhsö:ni Confederacy), for her work as “an artist, curator, scholar and cultural leader whose work over the past several decades has had a profound and lasting impact on contemporary Indigenous art and scholarship, both nationally and internationally…Her interdisciplinary approach – blending theory, community-based knowledge, and personal experience – has made her one of the most respected voices in Indigenous studies today.” Rickard is a visual historian, artist and curator interested in the intersection of Indigenous art, cultural theory and the forces of settler colonialism. Her research focuses on the expression of multiple sovereignties within Indigenous art and culture globally.
According to Stella Nair, Associate Professor of Indigenous Arts of the Americas at the University of California, Los Angeles, Rickard is known particularly for her concept of “Indigenous visual sovereignty,” which has become a foundational idea in Indigenous studies. Nair said Rickard’s essay “Visualizing Sovereignty in the Time of Biometric Sensors” is one of the “defining texts” in Indigenous visual studies, and her writings have been transformative.
“Professor Rickard has consistently expanded conversations about sovereignty beyond territorial or legal frameworks to foreground the living cultural, intellectual and creative practices of Hodinöhsö:ni communities,” said Nair. “Her work demonstrates that visual sovereignty has always been inseparable from Indigenous forms of governance – that artistic and cultural production are themselves expressions of political continuity, collective responsibility and self-determination. In other words, her scholarship asks us to understand Indigenous creative practice not as symbolic heritage, but as active governance and living knowledge.”
Rickard’s curatorial work has been included at the inaugural exhibitions of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, as well as Rebecca Belmore's Venice Biennale catalog "Rebecca Belmore: Fountain" and co-curation of two of the four inaugural exhibitions of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. She’s presented her work around the world, including at The Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum in Venice, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and as a featured speaker at the Power Institute in Sydney, Australia.
The former director of AIISP and a faculty member of the Otsego Institute for Native American Art, Rickard has served as a consultant to the Niagara Falls State Park interpretive museum and the Royal Ontario Museum, contributing to updating Indigenous perspectives in public spaces.
Raising the visibility of Indigenous art has also been an important focus for Rickard. She is on the editorial board of ArtMargins, a founding board member for the Otsego Institute, an advisor to The Great Lakes Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Culture and is part of the Inaugural Forge Project’s Indigenous Steering Council.
Linda B. Glaser is news and media relations manager at the College of Arts and Sciences.
