Layers of history
'Constellations of Place' honors 150 years of statehood, as well as peoples who came long before 

January doesn’t just signify the beginning of a new year, it also means the beginning of a new exhibit at Fort Lewis College’s Center of Southwest Studies. Starting today, Jan. 15, the center will present its latest exhibit, “Constellations of Place,” highlighting the layered histories and cultures of the Southwest. The show, which features 60 pieces from the CSWS collections as well as works from 13 Native American, Indigenous and Latinx artists, is also being held in conjunction with Colorado’s 150th year of statehood and America’s semiquincentennial.

An opening reception will be held today from 4:30-6:30 p.m. at the center and will feature live music by Diné artist Kino Benally (DJ Béeso). The exhibition is free and will be open to the public through Dec. 18.  

In addition to being held in conjunction with this year’s state and national anniversaries, the exhibit is also part of the school’s ongoing reconciliation efforts. A collaboration among the CSWS, Department of Reconciliation and Four Corners Bridging Institute, it was more than a year in the works. 

“Southwest Colorado holds stories in its mountains, rivers and canyons – stories that long predate colonization,” CSWS Curator of Exhibitions Cristie Scott said in a press release. “For generations, the Nuuchiu (Ute), Diné, Apache, Hopi and Pueblo people lived in relation to this land, moving through networks of kinship, trade and care.”

In time, these networks were replaced by settler expansion: trails became highways; rivers were renamed; and the region was romanticized as a land of beauty and freedom. However, many of these modern narratives erased the displacement and exploitation that preceded them. The show is meant to call attention to the area’s interwoven peoples and stories, which endured even through separation and loss, Scott said.

FLC, of course, sits at the heart of this story. Once a military outpost and later a federal Indian boarding school (1891–1911), the college is now a public institution serving Indigenous, Native American and Latinx students. Though its role has changed, its foundations remain shaped by histories of removal and assimilation – and by perseverance, creativity and love, Scott said.

“Rather than presenting a linear story of progress, ‘Constellations of Place’ gathers an interconnected field of artistic practices rooted in this region, works that hold space for grief and endurance, rupture and repair, beauty and burden,” she wrote. “These works remind us that survival is not passive but an active practice of creation, adaptation and care … that art is not merely a reflection of the past – it is a map, tracing lines of endurance and return.”

Meranda Roberts, a citizen of the Yerington Paiute Tribe of Nevada and Chicana, is guest curator of the show, which features textiles, pottery, beadwork, sculpture, video, digital collage, 2-D, screenprint, mixed-media and more. She holds a Ph.D. in history and an M.A. in public history from the University of California, Riverside, and serves on the Scholarly Advisory Committee for the Smithsonian Women’s History Museum.

“Roberts is a scholar, writer, educator and independent curator whose work sits at the intersection of Indigenous history, museum studies and visual culture,” Scott wrote. “Guided by Indigenous methodologies and anti-colonial pedagogy, Roberts is committed to reconnecting museum collections with descendant communities and reshaping the way institutions engage with Indigenous histories and futures.” 

Roberts’ prior projects include: “Native Truths: Our Stories. Our Voices,” Field Museum of Natural History; “Still We Smile: Humor as Correction and Joy,” Idyllwild Arts’ Native American Arts Festival; and “Continuity: Cahuilla Basket Weavers and Their Legacies,” Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College.

As Colorado marks 150 years of statehood and the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, “Constellations of Place” offers not a celebration so much as an invitation to reflect on how we understand place, memory and belonging. In that spirit, the show’s organizers urge attendees to consider three questions when viewing the works:

• What does this place carry – and what have we been taught to forget?

• What truths remain unspoken, unsettled or obscured?

• How might we carry truths together into a future that honors the beauty of this region, confronts its layered histories and deepens our responsibility to one another and the land?

“‘Constellations of Place’ is aiming to create a space where truth is spoken with care, where memory is held with accountability, and where the work of reconciliation is extended through art, story and relation,” Scott wrote. “Rather than treating reconciliation as a conclusion, this exhibition understands it as an ongoing responsibility, one that requires institutions, communities and visitors alike to step into deeper forms of belonging.”

“Constellations of Place” was also made possible with support from the Belonging Colorado initiative of The Denver Foundation and the Greater Good Science Center.

For more on the exhibition or the Center of Southwest Studies, go to: swcenter.fortlewis.edu.