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Visiting Fellow, 2022 – 2023

Nina Sanders

Biography

Photo by Erielle Bakkum.

Nina Sanders (Apsáalooke) is a curator, writer, and cultural consultant. She has worked for institutions like the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, the School for Advanced Research, and the Field Museum, where she curated the groundbreaking exhibition Apsáalooke Women and Warriors. Her writing can be found in Smithsonian, Native American Art Magazine, among other publications. In 2020 she edited Apsáalooke Women and Warriors, a book published on the occasion of the exhibition that explores the past, present, and future of Apsáalooke culture. Sanders lectures widely on Indigenous conservation, and she has recently consulted with organizations including the Burpee Museum of Natural History, the Indianapolis Indians, and the Chicago Blackhawks. Sanders currently resides on the Crow reservation, on the banks of the Little Bighorn River, at Medicine Tail Coulee.

Featured Project

Starla Thompson dancing in a jingle dress at the shore of Lake Michigan, from the land acknowledgment video that opens Chicago Blackhawks home games.

Native Chicago

2022 – 2023

Projects

Open Fields: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Future of Natural History

Open Fields: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Future of Natural History

This partnership with the Field Museum brought together anthropologists, visual artists, curators, scholars of historic preservation, lawyers specializing in indigenous rights, and tribal elders from across North America, to help redefine the concept of “natural history.”

An ambitious collaboration that brought together anthropologists, visual artists, curators, scholars of historic preservation, lawyers specializing in Indigenous rights, and tribal elders from across North America, the Open Fields project (2017–2019) helped to redefine the concept of “natural...

Open Fields: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Very Idea of a Natural History

Open Fields: Ethics, Aesthetics and the Very Idea of a Natural History

This partnership with the Field Museum brought together anthropologists, visual artists, curators, scholars of historic preservation, lawyers specializing in indigenous rights, and tribal elders from across North America, to help redefine the concept of “natural history.”

An ambitious collaboration that brought together anthropologists, visual artists, curators, scholars of historic preservation, lawyers specializing in Indigenous rights, and tribal elders from across North America, the Open Fields project (2017–2019) helped to redefine the concept of “natural...