At the Terra Foundation for American Art, we respectfully acknowledge that our main office is located on the ancestral homelands of the Potawatomi Nation. The Odawa, Ojibwe, Menominee, Miami, Peoria, Kickapoo, and Ho-Chunk Nations, as well as many other tribes, have relationships with this land and with one another.
We take responsibility for and acknowledge the privilege and benefits built through settler colonialism and the structural inequalities in wealth and power that continue today. We acknowledge the inequities and biases, including our own, that have historically and in the present defined narratives of American art. We are committed to supporting efforts to redress historical imbalances and omissions in American art history, including exclusions and misrepresentations of Indigenous art, history, and perspectives.
The shores and waterways of Lake Michigan have historically been an important nexus for gathering, traveling, trading, and intellectual and cultural exchange. The Nations that were removed from their territories through the 1833 Treaty of Chicago have endured centuries of displacement. The land continues to tell their stories—past, present, and future—and remains a home and gathering place to many thriving and diverse Indigenous communities today. We honor this history and the people who stewarded this land for centuries before us and those who continue to nurture and respect it.
We commit to Indigenous rights and equity not only through this statement, but also through action. We are building relationships with Native partners in Chicago and beyond, and together we are developing programs to support Native artists as well as the presentation and scholarship of Indigenous art, with these partners at the center of the decision-making.
