The Language of Place: From Nomadic Exchange to Futures of Memory and Land is a curatorial research project that will culminate in a major exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) in 2028. Developed in partnership with the Institute of American Indian Arts–Research Center for Contemporary Native Arts (IAIA-RCCNA), the project builds upon the Nomadic Exchange (2011–present), a curatorial, methodological, and field-based research framework conceived and developed by interdisciplinary Kyrgyz artist and curator Shaarbek Amankul. Grounded in Kyrgyzstan, Nomadic Exchange has cultivated sustained relationships, collaborative inquiry, and field research through structured nomadic routes, research laboratories, and long-term artistic exchange, which together form the foundation of this project.

Heidi K. Brandow will expand the transcontinental relationships cultivated through Nomadic Exchange, examining how sustained exchanges among Indigenous artists from Central Asia, the Pacific, and Native North America generate new ways of understanding land, kinship, memory, and cultural continuity. Through field research, artist dialogues, archival development, and collaborative convenings, the project considers creativity as a method of knowledge exchange—one grounded in reciprocal relationships, shared experience, and place-based ways of knowing.

The fellowship will also support the development of the Living Archive, a multimedia research resource that draws on video, photography, audio recordings, field notes, and other documentation generated through the Nomadic Exchange framework. Together, these materials will inform the exhibition’s curatorial development and scholarly publication while advancing new approaches to transregional Indigenous art histories, relational curatorial practice, and intercultural exchange.