Description

November is Native American Heritage Month. Join us for a lecture with Tess Lukey, The Trustees Associate Curator of Native American Arts. Learn about The Trustees efforts to center Indigenous voices and culture via our exhibits and programming, to recognize the important contributions of Indigenous peoples to the lands now stewarded by The Trustees. Tess will discuss her work curating the Across Boundaries Across Barriers gallery at Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, focused on the medicine wheel & seven directions, featuring historic and contemporary works of art from several Native American communities in five sections that center the concepts associated with each direction. Tess will also discuss recent collaborations with local Indigenous educators & The Trustees statewide education team to develop curricula connecting students to this gallery and the medicine wheel. Finally, Tess will touch on other projects and collaborative work, such as the next installation in the Art & the Landscape series: The Land Tells Our Stories, which will feature outdoor art coming to The Crane Estate in Spring 2026.

About our speaker:

Tess Lukey joined The Trustees in 2022 as our first-ever Curator of Native American Art to develop exhibitions and research initiatives related to The Trustees’ Indigenous art collections.

Lukey, an Aquinnah Wampanoag tribal member and lifelong New Englander, works across the state, and is based both at Fruitlands Museum and the deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum. She works closely with community members, collectors, and donors for potential acquisitions while offering broader access to and knowledge of The Trustees’ collections of art made by Indigenous peoples.

Lukey brings to The Trustees an extensive curatorial and educational experience. She has worked for the Museum of Fine Arts and the Society of Arts and Crafts in Boston, and the John Sommers Gallery in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She has also completed fellowships at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, and the Hibben Center for Archaeology Study and the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology in Albuquerque.

Lukey has a bachelor’s degree in ceramics and art history from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and a master’s degree in Native American art history with a minor in museum studies from the University of New Mexico. In her spare time, Lukey is a traditional potter and basket weaver practicing the techniques of her own Indigenous community. She currently lives in Sutton, Mass., the ancestral home of the Nipmuc Nation, with her partners and children.