Sháńdíín Brown

Sháńdíín Brown is a PhD student, curator, creative and citizen of the Navajo Nation from Arizona. Her research interests include multitemporal Native American fashion and jewelry, global contemporary Indigenous art, and Indigenous feminism and futurism. 

 

She is a graduate of Dartmouth College, where she earned her BA cum laude in Anthropology and Native American Studies and minored in Environmental Studies. Previously she held positions at the Heard Museum, Penn Museum, Hood Museum of Art, Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), School for Advanced Research (SAR) Indian Arts Research Center (IARC), and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum. At the Hood Museum, she co-curated Unbroken: Native American Ceramics, Sculpture, and Design (2022-2023) which investigated themes of continuity, innovation, and Indigenous knowledges across time and multiple mediums. While at the RISD Museum, she was the first Henry Luce Curatorial Fellow for Native American Art and was eventually promoted to the first Assistant Curator of Native American Art. At the RISD Museum, she co-curated Being and Believing in the Natural World: Perspectives from the Ancient Mediterranean, Asia, and Indigenous North America (2022–23) and Take Care (2022–23). She also curated Diné Textiles: Nizhónígo Hadadít’eh (2023–24) which explored the intersections of historic and contemporary Diné apparel design, weaving and womanhood. She co-taught in RISD’s Apparel Design department and served as a recurring critic.

 

Sháńdíín’s writing has been published by Fashion Studies, an open access academic journal in fashion studies by Toronto Metropolitan University’s Centre for Fashion & Systemic Change, as well as Forging, a digital-first journal for critically imagining Native futures by Forge Project. Additionally, she regularly writes exhibition reviews for First American Art Magazine. Sháńdíín is the 2023-2025 secretary for the Native American Art Studies Association (NAASA) and a curatorial consultant for the Gochman Family Collection. Finally, her jewelry practice can be viewed on Instagram @T.Begay.Designs