Join us for a conversation with Erica Lord and Lara Evans to learn about the legacy of James Luna in performing Artifact Piece, Revisited.

Evans and Lord will speak about Lord’s reenactment of James Luna’s The Artifact Piece, initially performed at the San Diego Museum of Man in 1987, in which Luna placed himself in a display case with some personal items. The work prompts critical reflection on the objectification and fetishization of Indigenous bodies and cultures in museums and the art world at large, while foregrounding contemporary and gendered perspectives. The speakers will explore how Lord and Luna came into agreement about Lord’s performance and then inspired one another’s subsequent work.

Lord will be performing Artifact Piece, Revisited on June 6th and August 15th. These presentations are the first performance of the work since Luna’s passing in 2018. It honors the significance of this work's impact on relationships between museums and tribal communities, and influences on Indigenous artists' work on self-determination, sovereignty, and social critique.