Mural Ecology: Walls that bring people together

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Role of Rock Art in Cultural Understanding: A Symposium in Honor of Polly Schaafsma" session, at the 84th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Our daily news brings much shouting about building giant walls to divide neighbor from neighbor. We optimistically turn our attention to walls that brought people together—Puebloan painted walls. In the 1960s, the painted kiva walls of Pottery Mound, near Albuquerque, brought artist Polly Schaafsma together with a motley crew of archaeologists. In the decades since, she has continued to bridge art and archaeology, rock art and mural painting. Analyses of the kiva murals themselves reveal past encounters between locals and migrants from the south, and between eastern and western pueblos. Contemporary mural artists today weave past and present through art in public places where all can gather instead of the traditional smaller and restrictive kiva space.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• The Role of Rock Art in Cultural Understanding: A Symposium in Honor of Polly Schaafsma   •
• Society for American Archaeology 84th Annual Meeting, Albuquerque, NM (2019)

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 23031