Join Cantor Arts Center for a presentation by multidisciplinary artist Rose B. Simpson, followed by an evening of conversation with Mary Deleary (Chippewas of the Thames First Nation), Director of the Research Center for Contemporary Native Arts at the Institute of American Indian Arts, and Joanna García Cherán (Purépecha), Phyllis Wattis Assistant Curator of Native American Art at the Cantor Arts Center.

Rose B. Simpson lives and works in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico, creating a wide range of works which include ceramics, sculpture, performance, and custom cars. Her work is currently on view on Stanford’s campus—at the Denning House and in the exhibition Dwelling at the Cantor. Along with the panelists, Simpson will discuss the role of Indigenous education, ways of centering nourishment and care, and how art serves as a tool for healing.

This program is co-sponsored by Native American Studies, Center for Comparative Studies in Race & Ethnicity, Department of Theater & Performance Studies, the Bill Lane Center for the American West, and Cantor Arts Center.

All public programs at the Cantor Arts Center are always free! Space for this program is limited; advance registration is recommended. Those who have registered will have priority for seating.

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Bios

Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983, Santa Clara Pueblo, NM) has an MFA from Rhode Island School of Design and an MA in Creative Writing from the Institute of American Indian Arts. In 2024, Simpson debuted a public sculpture project at Madison Square Park and Inwood Hill Park, New York, and in 2025 she is the subject of a solo exhibition at the de Young, San Francisco. Her works are in numerous museum collections, including the Met, New York; Hirshhorn, Washington, D.C.; Guggenheim, New York; Museum of Fine Arts Boston; ICA Boston; Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; MCA Chicago; Denver Art Museum; Portland Art Museum, OR; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont, CA; Vassar College, Poughkeepsie, NY, and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA. Simpson has enjoyed solo shows at the Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL; ICA Boston; The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; the Nevada Art Museum, Reno; SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA; Pomona College Museum of Art; and the Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe. Her work has recently been included in group exhibitions at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Cleveland Museum of Art; SFMOMA; Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts; the Berkeley Art Museum, CA; and the Bronx Museum of the Arts, NY. She recently participated in the 2024 Whitney Biennial, 2025 Hawai’i Triennial** and has been selected for the upcoming 2026 Sydney Biennial. Simpson lives and works in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. She is represented by Jessica Silverman, San Francisco, and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

An art historian, culture writer, and curator, Joanna García Cherán (Purépecha) serves as the Phyllis Wattis Assistant Curator of Native American Art at the Cantor Arts Center, where she oversees the museum’s Native American art collection. She first joined the Cantor in 2024 as the Capital Group Foundation Curatorial Fellow for Photography, where she worked with the museum’s significant holdings of 20th-century American photography. Prior to her time at Stanford, she was the Repatriation Fellow at the Stockbridge-Munsee Historic Preservation Office. Joanna has consulted for the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and held positions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Clark Art Institute. Her writing and criticism have appeared in Hyperallergic, Artsy, Latina, and First American Art Magazine. She holds an MA in Art History from Williams College and a BA from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Mary Deleary (Anishinaabe Kwe, Deshkan Ziibiing / Chippewas of the Thames First Nation) is an educator, scholar, and lifelong learner. She is the Director of the Research Center for Contemporary Native Arts (RCCNA) at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA). A proud IAIA graduate, she holds a B.F.A. in Museum Studies, an M.A. in Tribal Governance from the University of Minnesota–Duluth, and a Ph.D. in Native American Art History from the University of Oklahoma. Her research focuses on Anishinaabe practices of making and remembering Gete-Anishinaabeg—the old ones. Before joining IAIA, she was a Mellon Impact Postdoctoral Fellow in Native American Studies at the University of Oklahoma, where she mentored undergraduate fellows and taught courses on Indigenous leadership and the experiences of Native American Women. Her honors include the Social Science Research Council’s International Dissertation Completion Fellowship and the Nancy L. Mergler Dissertation Completion Fellowship. She is also co-editor of In the Company of Our Relatives, a volume of stories and reflections on ancestral belongings at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art. Guided by the care of her home First Nation, she serves as an elected member of the Deshkan Ziibiing Kinoomaagegamig Board of Education, and is dedicated to supporting Native artists and nations through research, leadership, and the arts.