Cultural Representation in Conversation
This Anthropology Day panel invites students and community members into an open, reflective dialogue about reckoning with inherited narratives and keeping a vital question at the center of cultural representation: who tells the story, how it is told and why it matters.
Past Legacies, Present Reckonings and Who Tells the Story
Examine how cultural representation has been shaped by anthropology’s colonial past and how those legacies continue to move through art, archives and public narratives today. Consider who has historically told Indigenous stories and how those narratives are being challenged, reclaimed and reshaped in the present. Drawing attention to the enduring afterlives of salvage ethnography and Western nostalgia, the panel reflects on visual traditions that both documented Indigenous lives and constrained them through categorization and control. These practices were deeply entangled with land dispossession, capitalism and institutional power, leaving frameworks that still shape how Indigenous cultures are seen. At the same time, the discussion foregrounds lived experience and Indigenous agency, emphasizing contemporary cultural production and the choices Native artists and communities make about what to create.
Meet your panelists
Tom Farris has been immersed in American Indian art his entire life. Farris spent much of his formative years in various museums, galleries and artists' homes. Having such intimate contact with the genre, Farris found inspiration for his own growing artistic aptitude. A member of the Cherokee Nation and Otoe-Missouria tribe, Farris is a multidisciplinary artist and draws from his culture and his lifelong influence of American Indian art to create his works.
Chris Hewlett, an adjunct professor at AACC, also is co-director of the Center for Research and Collaboration in the Indigenous Americas (CRACIA) at the University of Maryland. He has carried out research and collaborative projects with Amahuaca people in the Peruvian Amazon since 2009. Since 2014 he has been collaborating with Amazonian communities, Indigenous organizations, government officials and representatives of local universities on a series of projects that focus on the interconnections among history, land rights, education, political representation, advocacy and cultural heritage. In 2018 he completed a documentary film, “Amahuaca Siempre.” He is founder and president of the NGO, Share International that works with Indigenous Peoples in the Peruvian Amazon to collaborate on projects related to education, cultural heritage and representation
Karen Barber, teaches art history and museum studies at AACC and serves as director of the Cade Art Gallery. Her work engages the history of photography, modern art and curatorial practice, with research interests that include cameraless photography, photographic exhibitions and photography’s relationship to Native America. Barber’s teaching and curatorial approach foreground dialogue, critical inquiry, collaboration and the role of exhibitions in shaping cultural narratives. She holds a doctorate in art history from the Graduate Center, City University of New York, and has previously worked with significant photography collections in numerous internationally recognized museums.
Moderator Amy Carattini teaches anthropology at Anne Arundel Community College and is co-lead of AACC’s Arts Integration Hub. Her research focuses on immigration and belonging, and her teaching applies anthropological perspectives across disciplines while emphasizing reflexivity, ethical awareness and connection. She holds a certificate in museum scholarship and material culture from the University of Maryland and previously taught a course on the representation of American Indians in film and museums.
For information email Carattini at amcarattini@aacc.edu or Barber at kkbarber@aacc.edu.
