Not Apart: Indigenous Knowledges, Global Reciprocity, and the Art of Democracy Mellon Sawyer Seminar

This project begins from a striking point on our own campus: a mural that depicts Washington being “set apart” from Oregon—a moment rooted in violence, dispossession, and the disruption of Coast Salish lands and relations. This artwork raises a larger question that guides our work: can universities shaped by colonial and imperial histories become spaces for building more just, accountable, and democratic forms of knowledge and governance?

By centering Indigenous ways of art making and knowledge sharing, we seek to generate a new research and institutional agenda that can articulate epistemological, political, and aesthetic forms in democracy-enhancing ways. At the same time, this centering of Indigenous arts and knowledges offers the promise of modeling a form of academic freedom that is truly relational and emancipatory, not only for the benefit of Indigenous Peoples but for all our relations.

During the 2026-2027 academic year we will gather and collaborate with artists, scholars, and activists working within and across communities from the global majority (Americas, Arctic, African, Arab, Oceania, Asian worlds and more) who are interested in leading place-based participatory projects that can help transform and repair university-community relations through practices of relationality, respect, responsibility, and reciprocity. We will convene working groups and curate a series of public gatherings/doings/happenings that rethink themes and keywords of the “university,” “freedom,” and “democracy” in ways that support and uplift existing campus and community collectives.

Funded by the Mellon Foundation and spearheaded by the Indigenous Arts Collaboratory and other collective efforts, this Sawyer Seminar receives additional support from the Simpson Center for the Humanities, the Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies (CAIIS), the Graduate School, the College of Arts & Sciences (UWS), and the Schools of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences (UWB and UWT).

Interested in participating in this project? Please let us know by:

• Joining our list-serve (Indigenous arts)
• Sharing ideas and nominations for programming and events (Google form)