Global Dialogues

Through video-conferencing, Kiowa artist Teri Greeves, creator of the beaded high-tops in the exhibition Repair and Design Futures, speaks about repair as breathing new life into old objects. Highlighting the cyclical nature of Native American art, she discusses how although art-making materials change with circumstance, intention remains everpresent. Join us in this conversation with RISD Professor Claudia Ford, as we see context being put back into museum collections.
Free with admission.
Based in Santa Fe, Teri Greeves is a contemporary Kiowa artist known for her expressive beadwork. Raised on the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Nations’ reservation in Wyoming, her work references rich cultural histories and produces a new visual language. Her mother owned a trading post that was frequented by a great number of Native people, providing Greeves with an extensive knowledge of Indigenous motifs, patterns, and practices. Using beads as her medium for storytelling, she transforms modern objects, such as Converse shoes and umbrellas, into meaningful artworks that illustrate Native Americans’ present-day experiences. Greeves earned her BA from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and her work is in numerous museum collections, including the British Museum, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Portland Art Museum. Her work is currently exhibited in the National Veterans Art Museum, and she is co-curating an exhibition called Hearts of Our People, which opens at the Minneapolis Institute of Art in June 2019.