Multimedia artist Marie Watt is a storyteller. As a member of the Seneca Nation (one of six that comprise the Haudenosaunee Confederacy) with German-Scots ancestry, her stories draw from Native and non-Native traditions: Greco-Roman myth, pop music and Pop art, Indigenous oral narratives, Star Wars and Star Trek.
Watt reminds us of the stories told by her Seneca ancestors: how the world came to be, what we have to learn from animals, our ethical obligations to the planet, as well as to past and future generations. She tells stories about humble, everyday materials and objects—blankets, quilts, corn husks, letters, ladders, and dreamcatchers—that carry intimate meanings and memories.
Panelists
Dr. Renata Ryan Burchfield (Cherokee), Assistant Professor in American Indian Studies
Dr. Charlotte E. Davidson (Diné/Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation)
To'aheedlii niinishłį́, Waterbuster báshíshchíín (Clans: Water Flows Together, born to Waterbuster)
Kinłichíi’nii dashicheii, Flint Knife dashinálí dashinálí (Clans: Maternal Grandfather is Red House, Paternal Grandfather is Flint Knife)
Director of Native American House; Student Success, Inclusion and Belonging (SSIB) at Illinois
Dr. Maureen E. Warren, Curator of European and American art before 1850
About the Speakers
Renata Ryan Burchfield
Renata Ryan Burchfield is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado, Boulder through the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies and the English Department. And she holds a Master of Arts in literature and cultural theory with an emphasis on Indigenous film and new media, from the University of Oklahoma.
Her work focuses on process and performative sovereignties within Indigenous creative cultural production. For Renata, Indigenous studies are inherently an interdisciplinary undertaking and as such her research is at the crossroads of story and technology. Her research is concerned with how Indigeneity and Indigenous sovereignty are expressed through various modalities of creative expression and how this lends itself to real-world effects for Indigenous communities.
Charlotte E. Davidson
Charlotte E. Davidson (Diné/Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) serves as the director of the Native American House at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). She is also a lecturer for the Ed.D. program in Student Affairs Administration, University of Wisconsin La Crosse, and is the Indigenous Relations Advisor in NASPA (Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education). She received a B.A. in American Indian Studies from Haskell Indian Nations University and earned her M.Ed. and Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from UIUC. She has over 15 years of progressively responsible and expansive leadership experience at various institutional types. In her work, she draws from Diné decolonizing pedagogies, Diné matrilineal sensibilities, and place-based relationalities in creating empowering university contexts for Native student populations. She is a published author and presents nationally on issues important to Indigenous higher education communities.
