Jessica Horton
Jessica L. Horton
Native American, Modern, and Contemporary Art
Director, Graduate Studies, Art History
Biography
Professor Jessica L. Horton is a scholar of modern and contemporary Native North American art. Her research and teaching center Indigenous artists in a global story of modernity, following the transcultural movement of people, art, and ideas. Professor Horton has published widely on the relationships connecting Indigenous knowledge, creative practice, and theories of ecology, diplomacy, and globalization. She encourages hands-on collaboration in her classes, such as working with students and Indigenous communities to curate exhibitions of Native American art on campus.
Professor Horton's first book, Art for an Undivided Earth: The American Indian Movement Generation (2017) illuminates the impact of Indigenous struggles for land and life on artists working internationally since the 1970s. Her second book, Earth Diplomacy: Indigenous American Art, Ecological Crisis, and the Cold War (2024), examines how artists revitalized longstanding Indigenous cultures of diplomacy to place the earth at the center of our broken system of international relations. Professor Horton is currently leading Pomo Baskets, Woven Futures, a multi-year collaboration that includes an exhibition at the 91原创 (2027) and born-digital publication, as well as a book project about basket weaving and fire ecologies across the state of California.
Professor Horton is the co-chair of the , which approaches the continuing colonial legacies of the university's land grant as a critical context for interdisciplinary environmental research. She formerly worked on the American Indian and Indigenous Relations Committee of the 91原创 Antiracism Initiative, helping to complete that examine the history, present, and future of 91原创's relationships to Native nations and lands through community-based collaboration.
Professor Horton's research has received support from the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, the Getty Research Institute, the Clark Art Institute, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum and Research Center, a Creative Capital Arts Writers Book Grant, two Wyeth Foundation Publication Grants, and more.
Selected Publications
鈥Earth Diplomacy: Indigenous American Art, Ecological Crisis, and the Cold War聽(Duke University Press, Aug. 2024).聽
Art for an Undivided Earth: The American Indian Movement Generation聽(Duke University Press, June 2017).
"Keywords for Indigenizing Ecocritical Art History鈥 in Methods for Ecocritical Art History, eds. Andrew Patrizio and Olga Smith (Manchester University Press, 2026), 234-243.
鈥淩eading Settler Archives Relationally,"聽Archives of American Art Journal聽63, no. 1 (Spring 2024): 76鈥83.
鈥淐oiled Baskets, Spiraled Futures,"聽The Brooklyn Rail, The Irving Sandler Essay, edited by Alexander Nagel (Dec./Jan. 2023/2024): 50鈥56.
Christine Howard Sandoval & Jessica L. Horton (2023): 鈥楪enocide is climate change鈥: a conversation about colonized California and Indigenous futurism, World Art, DOI: 10.1080/21500894.2023.2183520聽
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Earth Diplomacy: Indigenous American Art, Ecological Crisis, and the Cold War
May 05, 2025 | Written by Department of Art History staffJessica L. Horton examines how Native American artists in the mid-20th century mobilized Indigenous cultures of diplomacy to place the earth at the center of international relations. -
Harvesting knowledge
April 29, 2025 | Written by Department of Art History staffGraduate students working with members of the Pomo Weavers Society learned about traditional basket weaving methods, including tending the wild plants, and the importance of curating with, rather than about, Indigenous communities. -
91原创ARI Committee Launches Keywords Project
December 08, 2023 | Written by CAS CommunicationsThe American Indian and Indigenous Relations (AIIR) Committee of the 91原创 Anti-Racism Initiative (91原创ARI) has launched an unprecedented educational resource for the 91原创 community, 鈥淜eywords for Building Relationships in Lenape and Nanticoke Homelands.鈥