Please join us for an upcoming lecture and panel conversation with photographer Joe Whittle (Caddo/ Delaware Nation) on Tuesday, March 11, from 4:30-6 pm in the Knight Browsing Room, with a reception to follow in Special Collections & University Archives from 6-7.
Nez Perce tribal member Allen Pinkham Jr. floats a large ponderosa pine log, which he will carve into a 30-foot dugout canoe, in the waters of Wallowa Lake found in his tribal homeland in Northeast Oregon.
Whittle will launch “Landback: Returning Public Lands to Native Americans,” his four-part photojournalism project documenting the Landback Movement and exploring the compelling reasons why federal lands should be returned to Native Americans. Whittle describes the Landback Movement “as a matter of addressing climate change, conservation, reparations, and a legal requirement due to the unconstitutional violation of every treaty the U.S. ever signed with Native Americans.” The project is categorized into four essential elements of sustainable Indigenous relationships with the land: gathering, growing, protecting, and trading. The work will be published in TIME magazine in the coming weeks.
His lecture will be followed by a panel discussion, which will include Brian Bull (Nez Perce), School of Journalism and Communication; Kanim Moses-Conner (Nez Perce), great-great-great grandnephew of the legendary Chief Joseph; Torsten Kjellstrand, School of Journalism and Communication, and will be moderated by Marisol Peters (Karuk), co-director of UO’s Native American Student Union. The panelists will engage the audience in discussion about the return of federal lands to Native stewardship, climate justice, and the importance of storytelling, as well as tackle ethical considerations in journalism, particularly when documenting communities outside one’s own.
The event is sponsored by the Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies; Division of Equity and Inclusion; Oregon Humanities Center; Special Collections and University Archives; UO Libraries; and the School of Journalism and Communication.
We hope you can join us!
