Multicultural Events and Programming

This thematic exhibition incorporates student research from History of Art and Architecture Professor Akiko Walley’s spring 2026 Japanese print course that focused on “the dramatic,” including dynamic prints of Kabuki theaters and actors, changing expressions of human bodies, and dramatizations of historical events and legends. Featuring recent gifts by Lee and Mary Jean Michels and Irwin Lavenberg, the undergraduate and graduate students in the course examined woodblock prints of the 18th-20th centuries that showcased action and powerful emotion with compelling graphic design. The exhibition is complemented by a selection of Japanese modern and contemporary prints, paintings, textiles, decorative arts, addressing the theme of “drama,” and includes a number of recent acquisitions. This exhibition was coorganized by chief curator Anne Rose Kitagawa.

Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love presents a survey of 20 artworks by Jeffrey Gibson (American, b. 1972), one of today’s foremost contemporary artists, curated exclusively from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation. Gibson, who is of Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, combines aspects of Indigenous art and culture with modernist traditions, navigating and disrupting the expectations placed upon Native artists working within the contemporary art world. By uniting sculpture, paintings, prints, and video with elk hides, tipi poles, wool blankets, beadwork, and fringe, Gibson celebrates the artistry of Indigenous cultures. He adorns and converts utilitarian items (including punching bags, flags, banners, and illuminated signs) to art objects that vibrate with spiritual power, carrying his belief that objects, and people alike, have the potential for radical transformation.

The exhibition’s centerpiece is an expansive and immersive work titled To Name An Other (2019) comprised of 51 screen printed elk hide drums and 50 wearable garments. Originally commissioned as a performance by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, To Name An Other marks a turning point in the artist’s career whereby Gibson has increasingly sought out collective-based projects and performances to activate the communities within which he works. Collaboration is at the heart of his recent social practice. Working and learning together may aid in decolonizing minds and institutions, revealing a future we wish to inhabit. In 2024, Gibson was selected as the first Indigenous artist to represent the US Pavilion with a solo presentation at the Venice Biennale, further demonstrating how his vibrant and powerful voice continues to broaden the view of American art history, contemporary times, and our future.

Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love – From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation was curated by Ryan Hardesty, Executive Director and Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Washington State University, for its originating institution in 2023. Its presentation for the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art was organized by Danielle Knapp, McCosh Curator.

This thematic exhibition incorporates student research from History of Art and Architecture Professor Akiko Walley’s spring 2026 Japanese print course that focused on “the dramatic,” including dynamic prints of Kabuki theaters and actors, changing expressions of human bodies, and dramatizations of historical events and legends. Featuring recent gifts by Lee and Mary Jean Michels and Irwin Lavenberg, the undergraduate and graduate students in the course examined woodblock prints of the 18th-20th centuries that showcased action and powerful emotion with compelling graphic design. The exhibition is complemented by a selection of Japanese modern and contemporary prints, paintings, textiles, decorative arts, addressing the theme of “drama,” and includes a number of recent acquisitions. This exhibition was coorganized by chief curator Anne Rose Kitagawa.

Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love presents a survey of 20 artworks by Jeffrey Gibson (American, b. 1972), one of today’s foremost contemporary artists, curated exclusively from the collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and his family foundation. Gibson, who is of Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee heritage, combines aspects of Indigenous art and culture with modernist traditions, navigating and disrupting the expectations placed upon Native artists working within the contemporary art world. By uniting sculpture, paintings, prints, and video with elk hides, tipi poles, wool blankets, beadwork, and fringe, Gibson celebrates the artistry of Indigenous cultures. He adorns and converts utilitarian items (including punching bags, flags, banners, and illuminated signs) to art objects that vibrate with spiritual power, carrying his belief that objects, and people alike, have the potential for radical transformation.

The exhibition’s centerpiece is an expansive and immersive work titled To Name An Other (2019) comprised of 51 screen printed elk hide drums and 50 wearable garments. Originally commissioned as a performance by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, To Name An Other marks a turning point in the artist’s career whereby Gibson has increasingly sought out collective-based projects and performances to activate the communities within which he works. Collaboration is at the heart of his recent social practice. Working and learning together may aid in decolonizing minds and institutions, revealing a future we wish to inhabit. In 2024, Gibson was selected as the first Indigenous artist to represent the US Pavilion with a solo presentation at the Venice Biennale, further demonstrating how his vibrant and powerful voice continues to broaden the view of American art history, contemporary times, and our future.

Jeffrey Gibson: They Teach Love – From the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation was curated by Ryan Hardesty, Executive Director and Curator of Exhibitions and Collections, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, Washington State University, for its originating institution in 2023. Its presentation for the UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art was organized by Danielle Knapp, McCosh Curator.

The University of Oregon's Environmental and Natural Resources Law (ENR) Center and cross-campus partners will present the 20th Annual Rennard Strickland Lecture, featuring Bryan Newland (Ojibwe), former US Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs—via Zoom Webinar. Register for the webinar through Zoom or on our event page. 

Newland will present his virtual talk, "The Vanishing Indian Property Rights: How Federal Courts are Stripping Indians of the Rights to Their Own Lands." 

Bryan Newland is a citizen of the Bay Mills Indian Community, where he served as Tribal President from 2017 to 2021 and Chief Judge from 2013 to 2017. From 2021 to 2025, he served as Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs in the US Department of the Interior, where he led the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Indian Education, and Bureau of Trust Funds Administration. As Assistant Secretary, Newland helped coordinate a historic $45B investment in Indian Country; led the development of a co-stewardship policy to promote public-land management agreements between federal agencies and Tribal Nations; and worked to implement the Federal Indian Boarding School Initiative, a comprehensive effort to recognize the troubled legacy of federal Indian boarding school policies and to address these policies' intergenerational impact. Today, Newland is a principal attorney at Powers, Pyles, Sutter & Verville, PC, where he represents Tribal governments, Tribal business entities, and inter-Tribal organizations on a broad range of legal and policy matters. Newland received a JD from Michigan State University (MSU) College of Law, where he also earned an Indian Law Certificate, and a BA from James Madison College at MSU. He is a recipient of the National American Indian Court Judges Association's Judicial Excellence Award (2024) and the Clean Water Action Great Lakes Protectors Award (2020). 

Through its Native Environmental Sovereignty Project, the ENR Center established the Rennard Strickland Lecture series in 2006 to honor the legacy of former Oregon Law Professor and Dean Rennard Strickland, who retired that year and passed in 2021. An Osage citizen of the Cherokee Nation, Strickland contributed mightily to the field of Indian Law, the practice of legal education, and Oregon Law's ENR and Indian Law programs throughout his lifetime. In keeping with his assertion that "[i]f there is to be a post-Columbian future—a future for any of us—it will be an Indian future..." (Tonto's Revenge, 1997), the Rennard Strickland Lecture series has a thematic focus on Indigenous environmental-legal leadership and Tribal sovereignty in the twenty-first century. 

The 20th Annual Rennard Strickland Lecture is co-sponsored by the UO Department of Native American and Indigenous Studies, Oregon Law's Native American Law Students Association, and the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. 

Oregon CLE credit pending.