Subhankar Banerjee, a professor, photographer, writer, curator, and scholar of environmental humanities. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Environmental Arts & Humanities at UNM. On Thursday, April 2, 2026, at 5:30 pm at the Tamarind workshop, Banerjee will be moderating a panel discussion about Native American visual artist Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s artistic community and influence. The panel will include several artists such as Neal Ambroze-Smit, Emmi Whitehorse, and George Alexander.
Jaune Quick-to-see Smith (Salish member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Nation, Montana) a groundbreaking visual artist, curator, and activist, died on Friday, January 24, 2025, at her home in Corrales, New Mexico, at the age of 85 after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. Smith was recognized as one the first Distinguished Alumni of The University of New Mexico College of Fine Arts, who earned an M.A. in Visual Arts in 1980 and an honorary doctorate in 2008.
The UNM Art Museum holds many of her artworks in its collection, including every print she made in collaboration with Tamarind Institute over the course of 40 years. The UNM Art Museum shared this letter that Smith wrote for the graduating class of 2020: “We artists are important to society. Keep in mind that cultures who quit making art are dying cultures. We artists, create art experiences that inspire people, help provide meditation, help heal, that give people hope, whether we sing, make a painting, dance on YouTube, play a guitar, or create an orchestra on Zoom that comes from all over the world. We artists are flexible, changing, and moving with the times. We are contributors to society in too many ways to count. See that the Creator gave you a gift, preserve it, and treasure it. Art can be your drug of choice. Don’t lose it; use it, to make the world a better place.”
Banerjee, who was curating a pavilion exhibition to coincide with the Venice Biennale, commissioned a book and invited Quick-to-see Smith to participate. Banerjee wrote, “In September of the previous year, when I invited her to participate, she accepted with enthusiasm. She told us that she always loved books. She wanted to create her art in a book form, which would be a first in her long and distinguished career. She told us that it will be a good fit for our ‘Library’ in Palazzo Bembo, once home of the famous Bembo Library in the late 15th and early
16th centuries. She worked closely with Valpuri Remling, Master Printer at the Tamarind Institute, and created ’All of My Relations I + II,’ 2022, two five-color lithograph accordion books with chine collé, which was first introduced in Venice, Italy, and then the following year, the accordion-book was included in her retrospective exhibition, ’Memory Map,’ at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.” Here at the department, we are incredibly grateful for her time here as well as the ways that Professor Banerjee continues to carry out her work and legacy with this upcoming panel discussion.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
READ MORE at https://www.dailylobo.com/article/2026/03/tamarind-institute-remembers-artist-jaune-quick-to-see-smith
LEARN MORE at https://tamarind.unm.edu/
