Jordan - Native American Community Arts

Find out why Jordan decided to complement her work as an artist with a MMHP in Museum and Heritage Studies.

Community Arts Worker Native Wellness Institute

I am from the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma and the Kingdom of Tonga. In 2015 I initially graduated with a post graduate diploma in Museum and Heritage Studies (PGDipMHS) and then completed in 2018 the Master of Museum and Heritage Practice (MMHP).

In 2015 I graduated with a Bachelor of Design from the Spatial design program of the faculty of Art + Design at Auckland University of Technology in 2014. I realised after a significant studio project with the Auckland Museum, that the museum industry is a place I wanted to be. My artwork and research, navigates the intersections between indigeneity and social, political, and historic contexts. I have an installation art practice with a focus on projection, moving image and photography. As a student designer and an emerging artist my work has been exhibited at local National and international institutions including the Auckland Art Museum, New Zealand Architecture Week, The Jacobson House, and the Prague Quadrennial.

I chose the post graduate diploma of Museum and Heritage Studies from Victoria University of Wellington because it is a highly accredited qualification. Material culture is something I have always been involved with. The chance to translate that involvement to institutional knowledge through Museum and Heritage Studies (MHST) has been very rewarding. MHST connected my separate interests of material culture, the public, and sociopolitical histories. Since beginning MHST I have had the incredible opportunity to go on placement in Collection Management with the Māori Collection. The success of that placement has let to an ongoing two year volunteer contract at the Te Papa Tongarewa National Museum of New Zealand within the Pacific Collection. Another highlight of the diploma was a conjoint exhibition between VUW at the Alexander Turnbull Library. The exhibition allowed for MHS students to work alongside Library staff and specialists to create a remarkable exhibit in the Turnbull Gallery. I had a curatorial internship at the Southern Plains Indian Museum located on the Kiowa Comanche Apache Reservation, Oklahoma, US. The first exhibition for Iskwe: : Màyí: Woman opened on the 1st October 2016. View exhibition poster here. Since then I have been working at the Native Wellness Institute in Gresham, Oregon.