A Colorado artist says the Town of Vail canceled a residency it had contracted with her to perform after a resident complained about a piece of art she created commenting on the war in Gaza.
Danielle SeeWalker said the piece in question, “G is for Genocide,” was not created for the residency and had nothing to do with the program. She said a town official informed her they were canceling the residency in a three-minute phone call.
“I signed a contract with them and had everything in place. I even turned down other job opportunities because of this contact,” SeeWalker said in a statement. “The residency would have been three weeks this coming June and would include multiple community art events including working with youth, painting a mural in Vail Village, an art exhibition and giving a talk at their Symposium.”
Town Manager Russell Forrest did not immediately comment when contacted by CPR News Thursday or Friday, but a statement on the town’s website questions the appropriateness of SeeWalker’s work on Gaza.
“While the town initially embraced SeeWalker’s work surrounding Native American issues, her recent focus on the Israel-Gaza conflict raised concerns about the use of public funds to support a polarizing geopolitical issue,” the statement reads. The Art in Public Places (AIPP) board, which oversees the town’s public art program, said it had not received a proposal for SeeWalker’s planned mural for the residency, “therefore no contract was issued.”
The SeeWalker artwork in question is a painting that drew parallels between the war in Gaza and the historical genocide of Native Americans. In a May 9 email with the subject line “Silencing of a Native American artist,” SeeWalker, a Lakota artist, expressed disappointment with the lack of opportunity to explain the context or defend her artwork.
On Friday morning, a future SeeWalker event in Vail titled “Still Here: Redirecting the Native American Narrative with Danielle SeeWalker in conversation with Clay Jenkinson” was still live on the Vail Symposium websites. It was scheduled to be held at Vail Interfaith Chapel on June 19 at 6 p.m.
“To be quite frank about it, even if they would have given me the opportunity to ‘defend’ myself, I most likely would have declined moving forward with the residency anyway, especially knowing this is how judgemental they are,” SeeWalker said in the email statement.
