Please join us in congratulating Dr. Jolene Rickard, a citizen of the Skarù·ręʔ / Tuscarora Nation (Hodinöhsö:ni Confederacy) as we honor her with the Native American Art Studies Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award!
Dr. Rickard is 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 visionary contributions have helped shape the discourse around Indigenous visual sovereignty, decolonial aesthetics, and museum practices that honor Indigenous knowledge systems and protocols.
As a scholar in the History of Art and Visual Studies and Art Departments, former director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at Cornell University and faculty member of the Otsego Institute, Dr. Rickard has mentored generations of students while producing research that challenges dominant narratives in art history and visual culture. Her interdisciplinary approach—blending theory, community-based knowledge, and personal experience—has made her one of the most respected voices in Indigenous studies today.
In addition to her academic accomplishments, Dr. Rickard is an accomplished visual artist and curator whose exhibitions have been included at the inaugural exhibitions of the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and authored multiple influential pieces, including Rebecca Belmore's Venice Biennale catalog "Rebecca Belmore: Fountain." Dr. Rickard has presented her work globally, at the The Creative Time Summit: The Curriculum in Venice, at the Museum of Modern Art, and as a featured speaker at the Power Institute in Sydney, Australia, among many other conferences and panels. Through her installations and photography, she addresses issues of sovereignty, identity, memory, and the legacies of colonialism with intellectual depth and emotional power.
