Teagan Harris (she/her, Cherokee Nation)
Through my work in Chicago museums and in academia, I have had the pleasure of engaging in numerous creative and useful decolonial projects such as creating a community archive that centers oral histories, designing a community space inside of an exhibition, and writing plenty of pages about identity and how it’s shaped by seemingly inconsequential things like movies and music. By putting my ideas into action, I hope to do my part to make the museum a welcoming place that democratizes access to information and engages with community needs in a responsive and open-hearted way. That’s what brought me to the Block Museum of Art where I serve as the Terra Foundation Engagement Fellow creating programming and media to support the exhibition Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak.
November is Native American Heritage Month, a time for highlighting, reflecting on, and celebrating Native history, art, and culture. I moved from Cherokee Nation to…
