Professor Brenda L. Croft | Ancestral Futures: Indigenous Cardinal Relations

This event will be held both on-campus and online via Zoom (a link to the online stream will be sent to registered attendees).

From 4 – 6 October 2024, First Nations/Indigenous/Native American participants from Australia, Aotearoa/NZ, Australia, Canada and the USA attended a three-day gathering/symposium at Harvard University. The symposium commenced with Australian First Nations film screenings at the Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts.

Professor Brenda L Croft will provide an overview of the symposium which was the major outcome of her time as 2024 Gough Whitlam & Malcolm Fraser Visiting Professor of Australian Studies at Harvard University. Professor Croft was the inaugural First Nations woman academic to hold this prestigious position.

Ancestral Futures: Indigenous Cardinal Relations gathered together international First Nations/Indigenous cultural advocates to critically analyse our positionalities and relationalities within our respective un/settler-colonial nation-states and on inter/intra/national homelands, considering work over the last four decades and what is required to strengthen our collective Ancestral Futures. Methodologies/Theories framing and guiding presentations and discussions included Ancestral Futures, Critical Indigenous Studies, Creative-led Research, Performative Collaborative Autoethnography, Relationality and Storywork.

The symposium opened with a traditional Honor Song and Address from Larry Spotted Crow Mann (Citizen of the Nipmuc Tribe of Massachusett), Cultural educator, Traditional Story Teller, tribal drummer/dancer & motivational speaker, poet & writer. This moving event was followed by the keynote ‘The Intellectual Infrastructure of Our Ancestral Futures’ from Professor Robert Warrior (Citizen/Member of the Osage Nation), Visiting Professor of Native American Culture and Traditions, Harvard Divinity School, followed by respondent Professor Philip Deloria (Yankton Dakota Sioux Nation), Leverett Saltonstall Professor of History, Harvard University.

This set the agenda for the following two days of panel discussions by, from and with international Indigenous critical thinkers and creative-led researchers: academics, creative practitioners, collection stewards, curators, educators, researchers and scholars.

Ancestral Futures was facilitated by Professor Brenda L Croft (Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra Peoples, Northern Territory, Australia; Anglo-Australian/Chinese/German/Irish/Scottish heritage). The symposium was supported by the Harvard University Australian Studies Committee; Departments of History of Art & Architecture; Art, Film & Visual Studies, Harvard University Native American Program (HUNAP), Harvard Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and Creative Australia.

Professor Brenda L Croft is a First Nations woman from the Gurindji/Malngin/Mudburra Peoples from the Victoria River region of the Northern Territory of Australia, with Anglo-Australian/Chinese/German/Irish/Scottish heritage. Brenda is Nangari skin and her totems are Ngarlu (‘sugarbag’ or native honey) and Tikirrija (red-backed kingfisher). For four decades she has undertaken a leading role in national and international First Nations and broader contemporary arts/cultural sectors as a multi-disciplinary creative practitioner (academic, administrator, artist, curator, educator, researcher, scholar). She works closely with her patrilineal family and community on creative-led research and with local, regional, national and international First Nations/Indigenous communities on multidisciplinary research. Brenda’s creative-led research encompasses Critical Indigenous Performative Collaborative Autoethnography and Storywork methodologies and theoretical frameworks. In 2024 Brenda was the Gough Whitlam & Malcolm Fraser Visiting Chair of Australian Studies, Harvard University, living and working on the Ancestral Homelands of the Massachusett. Brenda is Professor of Indigenous Art History & Curatorship at the Australian National University. She is privileged to live and work on unceded sovereign Ngambri/Ngunnawal homelands.

The School of Art & Design Seminar series will continue weekly on Tuesdays from 1-2pm, between 17 February and 21 October 2025, co-convened by Dr Alex Burchmore and Alia Parker.