California Native American Modern Art Archive

The California Native American Modern Art Archive (cna-maa) is a digital repository dedicated to documenting, preserving, and amplifying the work of Native American artists from California. Launched in Fall 2023, the project responds to a long-standing absence within major art historical and digital research platforms, where modern and contemporary Native artworks from California remain significantly underrepresented or entirely missing.

Developed through the Material / Image Research Lab in the Department of History of Art & Architecture at UC Santa Barbara, the Archive brings together students, scholars, artists, and community members to collaboratively build a living, ethical, and accessible record of California Native artistic production. The project foregrounds Native presence, continuity, and innovation, while challenging extractive archival models that have historically marginalized Indigenous artists and communities.

Project Overview

At its core, the California Native American Modern Art Archive is both a digital repository and a pedagogical initiative. Artworks and artist records are being added to JSTOR Digital Stewardship (formerly JSTOR Forum), where they are currently kept in a private folder that only the project team can see. Nothing is public. A record becomes public only when its artist has agreed in writing, and we hope to begin opening the collection in spring 2027. A complementary open-access public website is also planned. Together, these platforms aim to increase the visibility of California Native artists within scholarly, educational, and public contexts, while respecting artists’ rights, cultural protocols, and community priorities.

The project adopts a post-custodial archival approach. Rather than claiming ownership over cultural materials, the Archive operates through collaboration and consent. Artists retain possession and control over how their work is represented, described, and shared. Decisions about access, use restrictions, and attribution are made with each artist and recorded in a memorandum of understanding that the artist signs. The project follows Indigenous Data Sovereignty principles, including the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance (collective benefit, authority to control, responsibility, and ethics), which emphasize Indigenous authority over Indigenous cultural data.

The Archive focuses on modern and contemporary art, broadly defined, including painting, sculpture, photography, performance documentation, installation, mixed media, and digital practices. By situating these works within a shared digital space, the project challenges outdated narratives that confine Native art to the past or frame it solely through ethnographic or colonial lenses.

Student Participation and Pedagogy

Student participation is central to the Archive’s mission. Undergraduate interns working through the Material / Image Research Lab play a key role in research, documentation, and digital curation. Students are trained in archival methods, metadata creation, visual analysis, and ethical research practices, while also engaging critically with questions of representation, absence, and power in the archive.

Interns work collaboratively to locate artworks through artist websites, exhibitions, publications, institutional collections, and community-based sources. They assess existing archives for gaps and biases, develop culturally responsive metadata, and enter records into JSTOR Digital Stewardship, where they stay private until the artist has signed, with the rights statements and use conditions the artist chooses. Throughout the process, students are encouraged to think critically about how archives are formed, who they serve, and how they might be reimagined as sites of care, accountability, and collaboration.

This work can be integrated into coursework focused on decolonizing the archive, Indigenous visual sovereignty, and community-centered digital humanities. For many students, the project offers their first opportunity to participate in an active, public-facing research initiative that has real-world impact beyond the university.

MIRL is indebted to the thoughtful, generous, considerate work of student interns. As of 2026, numerous have worked on this project. We thank: Jiwoo Choi, Kay Chung, Mia Craik-Buxton, Reese Raygoza, Chris Schmider, Leili Shirvani, Emily Sullivan, Kaitlyn Taylor, Miles Trachtenberg, Jaret Valera.

Ethics, Care, and Collaboration

The California Native American Modern Art Archive is guided by frameworks including the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance, the protocols and best practices of the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM), best practices for describing Indigenous communities, and models developed by Indigenous archivists and scholars. Cultural sensitivity, relational accountability, and transparency are foundational values rather than afterthoughts.

The project recognizes that archives are not neutral. They shape historical narratives, institutional priorities, and public understanding. By centering collaboration and Indigenous authority, the Archive seeks to interrupt harmful archival legacies and contribute to a more just and representative cultural record.

For Artists

If you are a California Native artist, this is what to expect from the Archive.

  • We ask first. We write to invite you and send a short memorandum of understanding (MOU). No work is made public without your signed MOU.
  • You keep your rights. You keep full copyright and ownership of your work. The Archive is noncommercial, for teaching and research.
  • You choose. You decide which works are included, how they are described, and how your name and affiliation appear. You can add conditions on how your work may be used, and your own words.
  • In your own words. We record your nation and affiliation as you describe them, not as we assume them.
  • Licenses. You may keep all rights reserved (In Copyright), choose a Creative Commons license (Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 or Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0), or set other terms.
  • No AI. You can ask that your work not be used to train or generate with artificial intelligence. We record that request with your records and will respect it in everything the Archive does.
  • Your details stay private. We do not publish or share artists’ contact details or personal information.
  • Changes and removal. You can ask us to edit, restrict, or remove your work at any time.
  • Families and estates. If an artist has died, we write to their family, estate, or the institution that cares for their work, and ask for permission in the same way. Family members and representatives are welcome to get in touch through the contact below.
  • Questions first. If you would like to talk before deciding, write to Jeff O’Brien at jeffobrien@ucsb.edu. We are glad to talk by phone or in person.

Looking Forward

Future phases of the project include expanding artist representation across additional California Native nations, developing public-facing digital exhibitions, and deepening partnerships with artists, tribal communities, and cultural institutions. Artists will be added to the public collection only as they agree. As the Archive grows, it remains committed to adaptability, responsiveness, and long-term sustainability.

The California Native American Modern Art Archive is not a finished collection. It is an ongoing, evolving effort to support Native artists, train future scholars and archivists, and rethink what digital archives can be when built through care, collaboration, and respect.

Access and Contact

Records are currently in a private JSTOR Digital Stewardship folder. We hope to begin opening the collection in spring 2027, artist by artist, as each artist agrees.

A dedicated public-facing website is also in development. For more information, collaboration inquiries, or project details, please contact:

Dr Jeff O’Brien
jeffobrien@ucsb.edu

Last updated 28 October 2026.