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Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder's Department of Geography will present "Grounded Relations and Repair," a special colloquium and exhibition opening Oct. 30 in Benson Earth Sciences that will bring together Indigenous artists, intellectuals, community leaders and scholars through the shared language of maps, storytelling and art.

The public event marks the launch of a separate exhibition in theÌýÌýthat examines the founding of Colorado and Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder on lands forcibly removed from Indigenous nations and centers Indigenous perspectives on the past, present and future of their ancestral homelands.

A Research and Innovation Office humanities grant awarded to Isaac Rivera, an assistant professor of geography, is funding the project, which Rivera developed in collaboration with Native artists and leaders, theÌýJerry Crail Johnson Earth Sciences and Map Library and numerous campus partners.

The exhibition—curated by Kristina Bad Hand, Sid Whiting Jr. and Rivera with intellectual guidance from contributors Rick Williams, Shannon Francis and Viki Eagle—arrives during a milestone year for both the university and the state. While anniversary celebrations this year have often focused on institutional achievements, the new exhibition asks visitors to broaden that perspective and consider the deeper histories of Indigenous nations whose connections to these lands long predate Colorado statehood and the university’s inception.

Artwork and map of Colorado's Mount Blue Sky by Cheyenne-Arapaho artist George Levi.

Curators said the exhibition opens a door to more accountable relations with Native nations and provides a foreground of the cartographic history of the lands on which Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder now resides. It also invites visitors to examine how maps can both document history and shape relationships between people, places and political communities.

"Repair is a process, not an end point. Repair begins with ourselves, with our relationship to knowledge production, to land—and to each other. Repair is about political and environmental relationships to land. Repair is the invitation for transformation, for the redirection of institutions to affirm and insist on life,“ Rivera said.

Developed in partnership with theÌýJerry Crail Johnson Earth Sciences and Map Library, the exhibition features cartographic and artistic works from respected Native artists and intellectuals such as Rick Williams, George Levi, Sid Whiting Jr. and Kristina Bad Hand, among others. Through maps, stories and visual art, the contributors explore Indigenous nationhood, cultural continuity and resilience by highlighting Native presence, not as something confined to the past but as an ongoing reality intertwined with the broader university community.

Through a combination of traditional cartography and artistic expression, the exhibition explores how Native peoples seek to see their stories, histories and relationships—with the land represented and acknowledged. The project is intended to help animate historical consciousness around Native nations in Colorado while creating room for accountability, dialogue and repair.

The Oct. 30 opening for the exhibition and colloquium will include Cheyenne and Arapaho ceremonial songs performed by Creg Lee Hart and Amick Birdshead, who will sing Chief White Antelope's Song and the Victory Song. The performances will serve as reminders that Indigenous life, culture and relationships to these homelands have endured despite centuries of displacement and violence. The colloquium will feature a discussion exploring the significance of Native art, the role of geography in understanding Indigenous histories and futures and the ongoing work of building more accountable relationships with Native nations.

Curators hope that the exhibition’s themes will resonate beyond geography as a discipline and touch on broader questions facing universities across the country: How should institutions reckon with the histories of the lands they occupy? How can Indigenous knowledge, governance and cultural traditions be more fully recognized? And what responsibilities accompany efforts to acknowledge the past while building more equitable futures?

By bringing together maps, art, music and public dialogue, the project aspires to offer one response: Rather than presenting Indigenous history as a completed chapter, it will highlight ongoing Native presence, caretaking and collective healing. In doing so, the exhibition invites members of the Â鶹Ãâ·Ñ°æÏÂÔØBoulder community to view familiar places through new perspectives and to consider what meaningful relationship-building might look like across the university's next 150 years.