Biography
Alaka Wali is curator of North American Anthropology in the Science and Education Division of The Field Museum. From 1995 to 2010 she was the founding director of the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change. During that time, she pioneered the development of participatory social science research and community engagement processes based in museum science. She currently curates the North American collection and is leading the curatorial team working on renovating the Native North American Hall. She has also engaged contemporary Native American artists to collaborate on curating experimental exhibitions that combine contemporary art with historical items from the Field Museum’s collections. Her research focuses on the relationship between art and the capacity for social resilience. She is a team member for the Neubauer Collegium’s research project “Open Fields: Ethics, Aesthetics, and the Very Idea of a Natural History.” Wali was born in India and maintains strong ties to her birth homeland.
