A Colorado artist said the Town of Vail canceled Indigenous artist Danielle SeeWalker's residency after someone complained about a piece of art she created commenting on the war in Gaza.
SeeWalker shared a painting on Instagram in early March, featuring a woman in profile with one eye fixed on the observer and the rest of her face grayed out, a signature of SeeWalker's painted works. The woman has a bright red braid and a feather near her ear while sporting a keffiyeh, a black-and-white scarf worn to show support for Palestine.
According to SeeWalker, the disputed art, 'G is for Genocide,' was not made for the residency and had nothing to do with the program. In a three-minute phone call, she claimed to have been informed by a town official that the residency was being canceled.
In a statement, she explained that she even turned down other job opportunities because of the contract. She continued that the residency would have been three weeks this coming June and would include multiple community art events, including working with youth, painting a mural in Vail Village, holding an art exhibition, and giving a talk at their symposium.
On Thursday, CPR News contacted town manager Russell Forrest but did not respond immediately. However, a statement on the town's website raises concerns about the appropriateness of SeeWalker's work in Gaza.
The statement said that while the town initially embraced SeeWalker's work surrounding Native American issues, her recent focus on the Israel-Gaza conflict raised concerns about using public funds to support a polarizing geopolitical issue.
Furthermore, the Art in Public Places (AIPP) board, which oversees the town's public art program, said it had not received a proposal for SeeWalker's planned mural for the residency, "therefore no contract was issued."
Lakota artist SeeWalker was disappointed that she was not given a chance to defend her artwork or explain the situation, so she sent an email on May 9 with the subject line "Silencing of a Native American artist."
"As a person of color relating to other people of color that are going through genocide... I take it very personal that this was something that they just didn't want to have me be part of this residency because it affected somebody else," SeeWalker said. "On a personal level, my artwork is very much provocative. It tells stories, and it's centered around my identity as a Native American woman. It's past experiences, current experiences, stories I've been told."
