Leading Native artists, scholars and activists will convene at Northwestern University on Friday, April 1, for a series of panels and conversations about Native art and art creation, as well as Native American studies programs. 

Award-winning poets and authors Mark Turcotte ("The Feathered Heart") and Simon J. Ortiz ("Beyond the Reach of Time and Change") will be among those featured at "Creating Nations: Past, Present and Future." The day-long symposium will address art’s centrality to Native empowerment—via the academy, advocacy and beyond. 

Ortiz will deliver the symposium keynote, entitled, “History and Home: Indigenous Land, Culture and Community."

Organized by Northwestern doctoral candidate Bethany Hughes, a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and president of the university’s Colloquium on Indigeneity and Native American Studies (CINAS), "Creating Nations" grew out of a university task force that examined the school’s relative lack of Native studies offerings.

Click here to see the full "Creating Nations" schedule and purchase tickets.