Museums, as institutions, have long functioned as colonial constructs—sites where objects, histories, and identities are classified, displayed, and disciplined. Frantz Omar Fanon’s seminal critique of colonial infrastructure provides a powerful framework for understanding the artificiality of these spaces. In The Wretched of the Earth, Fanon explores how colonial regimes construct physical and ideological landscapes that impose order, dictate knowledge, and reinforce hierarchies of power. Museums, in this sense, function as extensions of these regimes, embedding a colonial gaze that controls how history is seen, who is authorized to tell it, and who is excluded from the narrative.
As built spaces, carefully designed to shape perception, dictate engagement, and construct narratives about whose histories matter and how they are presented, museums bring with them an element of manufactured realness and neutrality. Teagan Harris, who serves as The Block Museum of Art’s Terra Foundation Engagement Fellow, is keenly aware of this reality. Through her work, she has navigated the tensions between institutional frameworks and community needs, making space for engagement that is not just representational but actively reciprocal.
Harris’s most recent work involves joining the team leading the curation of The Block Museum of Art’s Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland exhibition. Guest curator Jordan Poorman Crocker, in collaboration with The Block Museum curator Kathleen Bickford Berzock and former Block curator Janet Dees, worked with four Indigenous artists—Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe/European descent), Kelly Church (Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Tribe of Pottawatomi/Ottawa), Nora Moore Lloyd (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe), and Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi)—on an exhibition that focuses on the historical and cultural representations of Zhegagoynak, the place now known as Chicagoland. The exhibition highlights the artistic practices and perspectives of these four artists through the presentation of works of 33 Native American artists from the Chicago region. Through a diverse range of artworks, including textile-based art, multimedia, and interactive installations, Woven Being addresses the vital role of Indigenous knowledge systems and challenges traditional, often colonial, narratives of art history. The exhibition provides an opportunity for Indigenous communities to engage in collective storytelling and reframe their presence within the cultural and political landscape of the region. The Block Museum, located at Northwestern University’s campus in Evanston, Illinois, is situated on the land of the Council of Three Fires, which includes the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peoples, Indigenous nations to whom the land historically belonged. The Ho-Chunk, Miami, Menominee, Sac, Kickapoo and Fox nations are among other tribes that inhabited the broader Illinois area around Northwestern University.
Artificial Landscapes: Manufactured Environments of Power in Museums
Colonial structures like museums do not just shape space—they shape the consciousness of those who move through them. The artificiality of museum spaces is not merely an aesthetic concern but a fundamental act of power. Museums are curated landscapes of control, sites where objects and stories are framed not simply for education but for the reinforcement of Western knowledge systems. Every object placement, every wall text, every pathway through a gallery is intentional, often designed and meticulously structured to shape visitor engagement.
“Every museum you go into, someone thought about each placement of an object and how it would affect the average user’s experience,” Harris explains. “The question is, who is the average user?” This question became particularly pressing in Woven Being, which aims to foreground Indigenous perspectives within a predominantly Eurocentric institutional setting. Harris describes the paradox of curating Indigenous narratives in a space not built for Indigenous audiences. “How do we center an audience that’s different from others we’ve seen come through Northwestern?” she asks. “How do we acknowledge and make up for historical wrongs?”
Read the full conversation “Art for Zhegagoynak and the Politics of Space: Lessons from ‘Woven Being” on Art Design Chicago’s website, originally published March 25, 2025.
