Joseph M. Pierce, an associate professor in Stony Brook University’s Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and the inaugural director of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative, has been named a 2024-25 Scholar in Residence at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).
The MoMA Scholars in Residence program recruits scholars and creators who contribute fresh perspectives on modern and contemporary art. Funded by the Ford Foundation, the residency supports three individuals with their unique projects in the field of historical arts. Scholars will have the opportunity to pursue research with access to the museum’s archives and collections and work hand in hand with MoMA staff.
Pierce’s journey as a MoMA Scholar began in Taghkanic, N.Y. at a week-long residency at the Forge Project, an Indigenous-led arts organization, where he first heard the good news.
“I was up there in a beautiful house full of art by myself, and Leah Dickerman, the director of research programs at the museum called to let me know,” Pierce said. “I was just sort of screaming, giddy, alone in this huge house, and it was echoing. It was really kind of amazing.”
Pierce worked at Stony Brook for 11 years, initially focusing on 19th-century Latin American literature and culture. As a Cherokee Nation citizen, his connection with Native studies has helped him bridge the gaps between Indigenous communities across the Americas which led him to start the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative – set to begin next spring when students can declare native studies as a minor.
“The United States as a country is founded on the dispossession of indigenous people,” Pierce said. “Native American and Indigenous studies as a field is committed to attending to that ethical concern and to engaging the realities of Indigenous people’s lives and livelihoods and cultures and the ongoing relationships that Indigenous people have with their communities and territories.”
Pierce’s passions lie in his upcoming projects at the MoMA Scholars in Residence Program. In line with his upcoming book, “Speculative Relations: Indigenous Worlding and Repair,” Pierce focuses on symbolism in contemporary art and color theory — the color red, in particular.
The significance of the color red initially stemmed from the history of the racialization of Indigenous people as “red skins.”
“We were not always called that. In fact, we have our own understandings of color and what color means that is separate from this racialized meaning of red and black and yellow and white, which is an imposition of Europe as a racializing technology,” Pierce said. “This got me thinking more about the way that color travels and changes meaning.”
Pierce’s plans at MoMA focus on the material cochineal, a vibrant red dye that was made from domesticated cochineal by the Aztecs. He shared the history of the global circulation of cochineal across time, from when Spain exported the dyes to Venice, Italy and nobility began to wear the vibrant red in their clothing to cochineal being used to dye the coats of the British redcoats during the American Revolution.
“So you have a circuit from an indigenous technology to a European commodity, and then back,” Pierce said. “And so I’m curious about how to tell that story through art and through the materials that are used in textiles, but also in painting.”
In addition, Pierce is interested in understanding the politics and protocol of gathering people together, specifically major institutions and Indigenous communities. He plans on using his background in studying performance art in working with the performance department at MoMA to bring his vision to life.
Both colleagues and mentors alike share their pride and excitement toward Pierce’s accomplishments.
“He is somebody who is both interested in listening and interested in sharing knowledge, and so I think he’ll just be a fabulous member of the museum community,” Leah Dickerman, the director of research programs at MoMA, said.
Dickerman, who will be entering her fourth year in the position, served as a member of the selection committee for this year’s scholars.
“He brings a lot of new ideas and fields that are very refreshing and relevant,” Paul Firbas, chair of the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature, said. “We are extremely proud, this is a great distinction for him.”
Firbas, who’s been working with Pierce for the last decade, views his success as a departmental distinction and a step forward for Stony Brook’s Humanities Departments.
“We are, in many ways, being leaders in what is happening in humanities in general, not just in Hispanic languages. We do much more than the very important and fundamental teaching of the languages,” Firbas said. “We teach and study cultural languages and the many ways of communicating and constructing knowledge, that also comes through art and different artifacts, which opens our studies to also non-western ways of thinking.”
Pierce’s residency with the Scholars in Residence program at MoMA will not only expand current knowledge on Indigenous studies but encourage understanding and reflection on the history of Native American and Indigenous people.
“This opportunity is going to allow me to share ideas, thoughts [and] experiences with other really interesting people and do something new,” Pierce said. “I feel really blessed and lucky because starting the Native [American and Indigenous] Studies initiative is doing something new. And it just so happened that the timing coincided with being awarded this very amazing opportunity and I’m going to take that opportunity and learn as much as I can. That’s what I’m looking forward to.”
