Danto Speaker Announced for 2021 Annual Meeting

The American Society for Aesthetics is honored to announce that Carla Hemlock will be the Arthur C. Danto Memorial Lecturer at the 79th Annual Meeting of the ASA in Montreal, Friday, November 19, 2021.

Carla Hemlock is a Mohawk textile and mixed media artist who was born, raised, still lives in and has her studio in the Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory. Through comforting, non-threatening, traditionally feminine objects, her work aims to spark difficult conversations on historical, political, environmental and social issues. With respect to her quilts in particular, Hemlock “uses medium and subject matter to upset viewers’ expectations … and to engage them in a critique of Native North American women’s histories and contemporary lives” (McLerran, 2017: 68).  Her work Tribute to the Mohawk Ironworkers (2008, in the National Museum of the American Indian) was included in the 2019 exhibition ‘Smithsonian American Women, Remarkable Objects and Stories of Strength, Ingenuity and Vision from the National Collection,’ and her quilts and other bead and textile work have been included in group exhibits in the United States, Canada, Germany, Russia and France. In 2017, she received the Excellence in Iroquois Arts award from the Iroquois Museum in Howes Cave, New York, and in 2019/2020 she served on the advisory board for the Minneapolis Institute of Art ‘Hearts of our People ’ Native Women Artists exhibit. Her works are in private and public collections including the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and Renwick Gallery, The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The National Museum of Fine Arts in Quebec City, and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

Carla Hemlock. Turtle Island Unraveling, 2014.

Cotton quilt and glass beads.
Collection, Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art.

Posted with permission of the Artist

For additional information about the artist, please see:

1. Craft in America website: https://www.craftinamerica.org/artist/carla-hemlock
2. The Minneapolis Institute of Art website: https://new.artsmia.org/hearts-of-our-people-native-women-artists/hearts-of-our-people-audio-tour/carla-hemlock
3. Interview from Rematriation Magazine: https://vimeo.com/312322505
4. Jennifer McLerran “Difficult Stories: A Native Feminist Ethics in the Work of Mohawk artist Carla Hemlock” Feminist Studies 43 (1): 68-107 (2017).

The Arthur C. Danto Memorial Lecture, established in 2014 in memory of Arthur Danto (1924-2013), is given each year at the Society’s annual meeting, typically by a practicing artist or by a scholar who is not in philosophy or related areas. Previous speakers:

• 2014: SOLI Chamber Ensemble, Trinity University
• 2015: Jonathan Green, Charleston, South Carolina
• 2016: University of Washington Chamber Dance Company, Seattle
• 2017: Fahamu Pecou, Atlanta, Georgia
• 2018: Ilene Sova, Toronto
• 2019: Natalie Diaz, Phoenix
• 2020: Joyce J. Scott, Baltimore