The Critical Indigenous Exchange, a talk by Photographer Will Wilson

6:30-7:30 p.m.

Artist and educator Will Wilson will talk about his 35+ years in the photography world.

A catered reception will follow the program at the Arizona State Museum.

Can't make it in person? Join us via Zoom. Register here.

This event and reception are paid for by a grant from the Mellon Foundation.

Will Wilson is a photographer and artist who spent his formative years living on the Navajo Nation. His photography centers around the continuation and transformation of customary Indigenous cultural practice, countering the ‘archival impulse’ embedded within the historical imageries of Native peoples. Through various methods of photography, Wilson combines digital technology, historic photographic processes, performance, and installation around themes of environmental activism, the impacts of cultural and environmental change on Indigenous peoples, and the possibility of cultural survival and renewal. His work is exhibited and collected internationally. 

Wilson is Head of Photography at Santa Fe Community College. He studied photography, sculpture, and art history at the University of New Mexico where he received a Master’s degree in Fine Arts. He has been honored with the Eiteljorg Native American Fine Art Fellowship, Joan Mitchell Foundation Award for Sculpture, Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant for Photography, and he was the Doran Artist in Residence at the Yale University Art Gallery. Wilson has held visiting professorships at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Oberlin College, and the University of Arizona.