Riles Exhibitions

The College of Arts and Letters hosts rotating exhibitions in the Riles building throughout the year. Current exhibits are available to the public Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with the exception of university holidays.

“Expanding Home and Place” will be on display through March 2025.

Viewed from the second floor, a photo of the crow flying with the pollen circle in the background as part of the Expanding Home and Place exhibition.

The Riles Exhibition photo of a crow flying in upper section of Expanding Home and Place installation.

Artist statement: Expanding Home and Place

“In 2018, I created an installation entitled Encircling Vastness in Volland, Kansas. As preparation, I became enthralled by the history of that state and how it had become the geographical center of the contiguous United States. Kansas takes its name from the Kaw nation and played a pivotal role in western expansion through Manifest Destiny.

Even before statehood, Kansas was the axis of the United States both socially and politically. Beginning in 1825, the Kansa was a frontier land on which Indian tribes were forcibly relocated. Through the Indian Removal Act of 1830, signed into law by Andrew Jackson, the Kansa officially became Indian Territory.

The Oregon and the Santa Fe Trails began just across the western border of the United States in Independence, Missouri, and then cut across the Kansa deep into the newly acquired lands of the Oregon Country and the Mexican Cession. In 1854, the Kansas – Nebraska Act became law, allowing white settlers to migrate into the Territory. This act precipitated the start of the American Civil War through a border war known as Bloody Kansas.

On Jan. 29, 1861, Kansas was admitted into the Union as a free state. In 1862, the Homestead Act became law. This act encouraged people to immigrate to and become citizens of the United States by moving onto native Kaw lands and other newly formed tribal reservations. Indigenous cultures were once again forced from their land and treaties became non-existent. The destiny of the western United States was being made manifest by literally stealing large swaths of land and forcibly removing Native people from those lands.

It is because of the history of how this country was manifested – through genocide and the stain of slavery – that I have been unable to pledge allegiance to the flag or to the country for which it stands. My allegiance has been to this Earth on which I stand. Like the form seen in Expanding Home/Place, my arms extend open as a V-shape. I desire that we open ourselves to the imagination needed for all of us to be part of a global world community that includes all peoples, all fauna, all flora: all sisters and brothers as sentient beings with individual spirits. We are all interdependent.

Each day, the great Sun rises and moves across the Earth, its largeness passing through the land and through our bodies as a quiet example of how to give and sustain life, expanding our home, our place, for all.”

Artist biography: Shawn Skabelund

Shawn Skabelund (MFA, The University of Iowa, 1990) is an artist and curator working in landscapes to reveal their complex issues, ecologies, and cultural histories. For thirty years, he has been a successful site-specific, place-based installation artist, creating over seventy installations throughout the United States, Mexico, and Italy. This summer (2024), he had three solo exhibitions, including: Their Largeness Passes Through Me (HeArt Box Gallery, Flagstaff) and Convergence (Rock House, Wupatki National Monument). In 2025, he has exhibitions at the University of Wyoming (Laramie) and Western New Mexico University (Silver City).

The exhibitions Skabelund has curated have also explored themes that are topical and of grave concern: Beyond the Border: The Wall, the People and the Land looked at migration issues along the U.S./Mexico border; Fires of Change engaged with the topic of catastrophic wildfires in the Southwest; and Hope & Trauma on a Poisoned Land explored uranium mining and its impact on the Diné. All were on view in Flagstaff, AZ, at the Coconino Center for the Arts (the latter was also the first exhibition dedicated to the impact of uranium mining on the Navajo Nation).

Skabelund has received five Viola Awards for Excellence in the Visual Arts, Excellence in the Performing Arts, and Innovation in the Arts. An article, Work in Progress with Shawn Skabelund, focusing on his creative process was recently published in Southwest Contemporary.