View of Pitt Lake, B.C., Katzie First Nation territory, photo by Alexandra Peck (January 2025).
The 2025 Audain Symposium’s theme is “Rethinking Patrimony, Restitution, & Repatriation: New Pathways & Puzzles in Native Cultural Heritage.” Our panels of academics, graduate students, museum professionals, and Indigenous experts will present papers and scholarship that examine particularly novel or creative approaches to the repatriation of Indigenous belongings, as well as the unique challenges or obstacles that arise in repatriation efforts across North America. Emanating from diverse disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, presenters discuss case studies and speculative research, as well as legal loopholes and current debates. In addition to scholarship that explores the return of physical belongings, possessions, and remains, our panelists propose notions of repatriation that include the reunification of music, literature/language, land, and intellectual property or intangible knowledge.
Keynote speakers:
- Dr. Trevor James Bond, Interim Dean of Libraries, Washington State University
- Nakia Williamson, Director, Nez Perce Tribe Cultural Resource Department
Join our gathering to share your own expertise and make cross-cultural connections, generate lively dialogue, and incubate solutions, while considering questions such as:
How does federal legislation (or lack thereof) help or hinder repatriation? ● How do we approach objects with contested histories or descendants? ● Who determines the validity of repatriation claims? ● How do definitions of property, ownership, and stewardship differ across communities? ● What alternative modes of repatriation exist? ● How effective are long-term loans, 3-D printing, and commissioned replicas? ● What does the afterlife of repatriated objects look like? ● How are humour and celebration, as well as solemnity and sadness, intertwined with repatriation?
Please see audainsymposium.com for information related to registration, keynote speakers and presentations, and a schedule of events, including meals and entertainment that are open to the public on May 15 and 16, 2025 at the University of British Columbia Vancouver campus. Registration required, closes on May 1.
The inaugural Audain Symposium is organized by Dr. Alexandra M. Peck, Assistant Professor and Audain Chair in Historical Indigenous Art, with assistance from Audrey Chan, M.A. Art History student, and is hosted on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Musqueam with the support of the Audain Chair in Historical Indigenous Art endowment at the Department of Art History, Visual Art, and Theory at the University of British Columbia.
