Networking a native arts force: ATLATL, National Service Organization for Native American Arts

Abstract

This article examines the development of an early Indigenous arts activism in the USA through the actions of ATLATL, National Service Organization for Native American Arts, based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Active for over two decades, ATLATL's work allows us to deepen our understanding of North American Indian peoples' claims for ‘visual sovereignty’, by examining the very internal mechanisms of this activism. Simultaneously, by contextualizing the work of the collective with the constraints artists are faced with in light of the native arts market and cultural tourism, it places arts activism alongside indigenous negotiations of the marketplace. Exploring how gaining agency within the ‘native art world’ involves creating different forms of awareness and autonomy, it examines the multiple ways this collective influenced the rise of native control over the production, circulation, exhibition and sale of their work, from creating networks and connections between artists, institutions and funding bodies to understanding and navigating the demands of the local, national and international art worlds.