Lois Taylor Biggs, The Block Museum’s Terra Foundation Curatorial Research fellow, was recently chosen as the recipient of C Magazine and the Indigenous Curatorial Collective’s inaugural Indigenous Art Writing Award. 

C Magazine, established in 1984, emphasizes the work of writers and artists from Black, Indigenous, diasporic, and other equity-seeking communities in a space committed to historically engaged, imaginative critical dialogue. The Indigenous Curatorial Collective is an Indigenous led non-profit organization which provides support, opportunities, and community for Indigenous people working in the arts. The ICC/C Magazine Indigenous Art Writing Award was created to support, compensate, and platform Indigenous individuals who are advancing critical and creative thought about Indigenous contemporary art. 

Biggs’s winning essay, “Archives, Bones, and Polaroids,” reflects on Indigenous archival practice in the work of Cree artists Kimowan Metchewais and Duane Linklater. Her essay will be published in the forthcoming April issue of C Magazine. In the meantime, she will participate in the winter 2021/2022 Momus Emerging Critics Residency dedicated to global Indigenous art criticism. 

In her work at The Block as the Terra Foundation Curatorial Research Fellow, Lois works in collaboration with a team of curators on a project which takes a deliberate approach to the underappreciated art history of Chicago from Native American perspectives. Chicago sits on the homelands of the Council of the Three Fires: Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa; as well as the Menominee, Miami, and Ho-Chunk nations. The site has long been a cultural and economic hub for Indigenous peoples and is currently home to a diverse Native community. With this acknowledgment as a critical reference and call to action, The Block’s project explores the confluences that have shaped and continue to shape Indigenous creative practices in Chicago, putting the past in a conversation with the present. At the Block Lois focuses on cultivating collaborative, decolonizing processes that uphold Indigenous curatorial
methodologies of inclusivity, reciprocity, and research shaped by community priorities.