UCLA/Getty Program’s Distinguished Speaker Series
Dr. Glenn Wharton
Chair, UCLA/Getty Program in the Conservation of
Archaeological and Ethnographic Materials invites you to attend
UCLA/Getty Program’s Distinguished Speaker Series
featuring:
Dr. Gabrielle Tayac
Associate Professor of Public History, George Mason University
Former Curator at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian
Ancestors Speaking:
Objects and Cultural Sovereignty in Native America with opening remarks by:
Dr. Darnell Hunt
Dean, UCLA Division of Social Sciences
Professor of Sociology and African American Studies
Friday, March 5, 2021Â at 11:00 a.m. PST
Live streaming via Zoom
To RSVP, please visit https://ucla.in/3qumLxh.
Please submit your questions in advance of the webinar via email to:
hnadworny@support.ucla.edu by Thursday, March 4 at 3:00 p.m.
Instructions to join the webinar will be provided once your registration has been confirmed.
About the lecture: A family of baskets. A library in a shell. A vow breathing through stone. For diverse indigenous communities across the Americas, material objects connect to a wider web of cultural relationships. These pieces are part of people’s lives, with essences that may be considered kin through time and space. They merge humans together with each other, spirit, and the seen natural world over generations. Colonialism purposefully and relentlessly unleashed actions to repress and even eradicate indigenous peoples for centuries – along with their beloved objects. Late 20th  century policies shifted to open conditions for Native communities to innovate culture in multiple ways, including reconnections to ancestral material culture. In this lecture, Dr. Gabrielle Tayac will share learnings that she’s experienced across the continent with knowledge keepers who know how to amplify their ancestors’ voices.
About the speaker:  Dr. Gabrielle Tayac, a member of the Piscataway Indian Nation, is an activist scholar committed to empowering indigenous perspectives. Gabi earned her Ph.D. and M.A. in Sociology from Harvard University, and her B.S. in Social Work and American Indian Studies from Cornell University. Her scholarly research focuses on hemispheric American Indian identity, multiracialism, indigenous religions, and social movements, maintaining a regional specialization in the Chesapeake Bay. Gabi served on the staff of Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian for 18 years as its first education director and then as a historian and curator. She engages deeply in community relationships and public discourse with audiences from kindergarten classes to the (Obama) White House. She recently returned from a two-year journey to uplift the voices of indigenous elder women leaders and help them preserve their treasured cultural legacies, sponsored by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. Gabi is now an Associate Professor of Public History at George Mason University.
