CREATING AN OSAGE FUTURE: ART, RESISTANCE, AND SELF-REPRESENTATION Jami C. Powell A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of Anthropology. Chapel Hill 2018 Approved by: Jean Dennison Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld Valerie Lambert Jenny Tone-Pah-Hote Chip Colwell © 2018 Jami C. Powell ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Jami C. Powell: Creating an Osage Future: Art, Resistance, and Self-Representation (Under the direction of Jean Dennison and Rudolf Colloredo Mansfeld) Creating an Osage Future: Art, Resistance, and Self-Representation, examines the ways Osage citizens—and particularly artists—engage with mainstream audiences in museums and other spaces in order to negotiate, manipulate, subvert, and sometimes sustain static notions of Indigeneity. This project interrogates some of the tactics Osage and other American Indian artists are using to imagine a stronger future, as well as the strategies mainstream museums are using to build and sustain more equitable and mutually beneficial relationships between their institutions and Indigenous communities. In addition to object-centered ethnographic research with contemporary Osage artists and Osage citizens and collections-based museum research at various museums, this dissertation is informed by three recent exhibitions featuring the work of Osage artists at the Denver Art Museum, the Field Museum of Natural History, and the Sam Noble Museum at the University of Oklahoma. Drawing on methodologies of humor, autoethnography, and collaborative knowledge-production, this project strives to disrupt the hierarchal structures within academia and museums, opening space for Indigenous and aesthetic knowledges. Although this research is grounded in an analysis of the Osage Nation, its focus on the intersection of art and self-determination contributes to imperative and timely interdisciplinary discussions about participatory research, decolonization, Indigenous knowledge production, and museum representations with which Indigenous communities across the globe are currently struggling. iii For my Grandma Georgeann whose work inspired my research and whose legacy I aspire to continue. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This is probably the hardest section of this dissertation. So much of my own labor has gone into this project, but I would never have completed it without the support of many folks. While financial and research support were integral to my project, the time and energy people put into visiting with me was also integral. Many conversations that were informal or unrecorded helped to shape this project. Although I understand that there are certain “expectations” for the acknowledgement sections of dissertations and manuscripts—one of which is that they should be short—the abbreviation of this section fails to recognize how much labor actually goes into completing a dissertation. Even still, I know there are people whose work has contributed to this project, and I apologize if I have failed to acknowledge your contribution. I would like to begin by thanking the Osage Nation, and particularly the artists and citizens who allowed me to interview them, to talk with them, and to think with them. Although I cannot possibly thank all of the folks who have shared their knowledge with me, I would like to thank Norman Akers, Chris Pappan, Anita Fields, Yatika Fields, Charles Red Corn, Jeri Red Corn, Addie Roanhorse, Anya Roanhorse, Ryan Red Corn, Veronica Pipestem, Dante Biss-Grayson, Jon Red Corn, Wendy Ponca, Jim Gray, Moira Red Corn, Janet Emde, Arlandra Gray, Christina Mashunkaskey, Dannette Daniels, Otto Hamilton, Chad Renfro, Julie O’Keefe, Terry Mason Moore, Mogri Lookout, Sarah Elsberry, Margo Gray, Joe Don Brave, Alex Red Corn, Andrew Gray, Rock Pipestem, Robert Warrior, Randolph Crawford, Paula Farid, Ben Jacobs, and Genevieve Simermeyer. I would also like to thank the non-Osage artists and non-Indigenous folks who contributed their knowledge to this project: Debra Yepa-Pappan, Feather Metsch, Will Wilson, Kent Monkman, James Luna, Tom Farris, v Elizabeth Farris, Hulleah Tsinajinnie, Celeste Pedri, Kalyn Barnowski, Emma Robbins, Cutcha Risling Baldy, Monte Yellowbird, Christina Burke, Christina Kreps, Clyde Ellis, Earl Fenner, Faith Fenner, and Jim Cooley. I am also grateful to the Osage Nation Education Department and the Osage Nation Foundation who supported my scholarship and research throughout my dissertation. From the beginning of this project the Osage Nation Museum (ONM) has provided me with incredible research support and a place to work while in Pawhuska. I am grateful for the ONM staff and particularly the help and guidance of former ONM Director Kathryn Red Corn, as well as the current ONM Curator Hallie Winter, and ONM staff Pauline Allred, Dawn Rewolinski, Kimberly McCauley, Lou Brock, and James Elsbery. The Osage Nation Communications Department has also helped with filming interviews for this research, and I am grateful for the support of Geneva HorseChief-Hamilton and Dawn Haney. Throughout my graduate work, I received support from the Graduate School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) through the North Carolina Native American Incentive Grant, the Penny and Howard Aldrich Summer Research Grant, the Werner Friederich Fellowship, and the Sequoyah Fellowship. I am also grateful for the incredible financial and emotional support provided by Kathy Wood at the Initiative for Minority Excellence. While at UNC, I benefitted from the community and support of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Department and the American Indian Center who have created a community for me and other Native students. I am particularly grateful to my fellow First Nations Graduate Circle members Courtney Lewis, Liz Ellis, Brooke Bauer, Meredith McCoy and Marty Richardson who have been incredible friends and collaborators throughout this process. I also want to thank my fellow anthropology graduate students who made incredible sounding boards and co-thinkers: Maia Dedrick, Liz Berger, Marissa Bruce, Vincent Joos, Andrew Ofstehage, Anthony San Luis, James Nyman, vi Ashley Peles, David Cranford, Stan Thayne, Lindsey West Wallace, Bill Westermeyer, Meg Kassabaum, Orisanmi Burton, Maggie Morgan-Smith, Cassandra Hartblay, and others. I am grateful for the institutional and curatorial support for this research from the Denver Art Museum, the Field Museum, the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, the Sam Noble Museum of Oklahoma Natural History, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. During my dissertation I benefitted from my participation in the Mellon Fellowship program at the Peabody Essex Museum, the Newberry Consortium on American Indian Studies, the Otsego Institute at the Fenimore Art Museum, as well as the Indigenous Fellowship Program at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. I would like to thank the following folks from the above institutions for their support and generosity during my research: Carla Bradmon, Melissa Stoltz Bechhoefer, Stephen Nash, Bethany Williams, John Lukavic, Eric Berkemeyer, Nancy Blomberg, Patricia Roy-Trujillo, Alaka Wali, Nina Cummings, Dan Swan, Karen Kramer, Jennifer Himmelreich, Dan Monroe, Amanda Clark MacMullan, Rebecca Ehrhardt, Austen Barron Bailey, Patricia Marroquin-Norby, Eva Fognell, Heather Igloliorte, Jolene Rickard, Ruth Phillips, Janet Berlo, David Penny, Emil Her Many Horses, Aaron Glass, Sylvia Yount, David Rhoads, and Christine Giutini. While writing this dissertation, I have been living, writing, and teaching in Boston, and I’m grateful to the Consortium of Studies in Race, Colonialism, and Diaspora and the American Studies program at Tufts University. I have met some incredible colleagues at Tufts and the School for the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts, who have help shaped my dissertation. I am particularly grateful for my colleagues, Cynthia Sanders, Matt Hooley, Adriana Zavala, Heather Curtis, Elana Jefferson-Tatum, Jean Wu, Thomas Abowd, Kyle Kamaiopili, Rupa Pillai, Abigail Satinsky, Liz Canter, Dina Dietsch, Eulogio Guzman, and Anthony Romero. I am especially grateful for my “Issues in American Indian Studies” and “Indigenous Ethnographies students who pushed me to think more deeply throughout the writing process, and vii who were particularly understanding of my schedule throughout the writing process. I would like to thank: Evie Bellew, Benjamin “Britt” Britt, Olivia Carle, Mia Lambert, Colette Midulla, Maya Pace, Molly Tunis, Priya Vaishampayan, Julia Yun, Ana Sofia Amieva-Wang, Gabby Bonfiglio, Anna Del Castillo, CeCe Fleury, Susan Janowsky, Meg Kenneally, Raveena Longia, Zoe Miller, Sara Otalora, and Parker Breza. During my time in Boston, I have also received incredible support from the Native American and Indigenous Studies community across institutions. Shelly Lowe and Jason Packineau at the Harvard University Native American Program have created a community space for Harvard students and local Native folks. I am also grateful to other folks at Harvard and in the greater Boston area who have created a sense of community throughout this process: Phil Deloria, Castle McLaughlin, Nick Estes, Jordan Kennedy, Wade Campbell, Tristan Ahtone, Tim Robertson, Ellen Cushman, Nick Brown, Kevin Bruyneel, Maria John, and Layla Bermeo. Doing work in Native American and Indigenous Studies can be an isolating endeavor, particularly when you are the only graduate student in your department working in that