Join us for a conversation between internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist Rebecca Belmore, member of the Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe), and renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and artist Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.

This unique conversation, mediated by Professor Gina Dent and IAS Director and Chief Curator Rachel Nelson, will focus on Belmore’s and Betasamosake Simpson’s practices as they reflect on the multi-sited exhibition Seeing through Stone. The exhibition features the works of more than 85 international and national artists across three venues, including Belmore’s “At Pelican Falls,” which is on view at the San José Museum of Art.

Rebecca Belmore, a member of the Lac Seul First Nation (Anishinaabe), is an internationally recognized multidisciplinary artist. Rooted in the political and social realities of Indigenous communities, Belmore’s works make evocative connections between bodies, land, and language. Belmore received the Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation’s VIVA Award (2004), the Hnatyshyn Visual Arts Award (2009), the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2013), and the Gershon Iskowitz Prize (2016). She received honorary doctorates from OCAD University (2005), Emily Carr University of Art + Design (2018), and NSCAD University (2019).

Leanne Betasamosake Simpson is a renowned Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg scholar, writer, and artist who has been widely recognized as one of the most compelling Indigenous voices of her generation. Her work breaks open the intersections between politics, story, and song—bringing audiences into a rich and layered world of sound, light, and sovereign creativity. Leanne is the author of eight books, including A Short History of the Blockade and the novel Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies, which was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the Dublin Literary Prize. This Accident of Being Lost was a finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award. Her new project, a collaboration with Robyn Maynard, Rehearsals for Living is a National bestseller and was short-listed for the Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction. Leanne is also a musician. Her latest release Theory of Ice was named to the Polaris Prize shortlist, and she is the 2021 winner of the Prism Prize’s Willie Dunn Award.

Location

Institute of the Arts and Sciences, UC Santa Cruz
100 Panetta Avenue
Santa Cruz, CA 95060