San Luis Valley Stories Fireside Chat presented by the National Council for Preservation Education
San Luis Valley Stories Fireside Chat presented by the National Council for Preservation Education.
Wednesday, April 8, 2026 from 2:00 — 3:00pm eastern standard time via zoom. Please click here to register.
https://ucdenver.zoom.us/meeting/register/SzTJWWjLQvSsAwqGIs64uw#/registration
Marcie Moore Gantz, the head of the Colorado State Historic Fund will moderate a conversation with artists Ronald Rael and Chip Thomas about their collaborative story-telling efforts in the San Luis Valley to shed light on the undertold history of indigenous captivity. The discussion will center around the bold moves taken by the history museum at Fort Garland to better share some of the San Luis Valley’s complicated legacies and how the synergy of art and history can have a profound impact on the ability to share stories.
Artist Dr. James "Chip" Thomas created the 2021 installation Unsilenced: Indigenous Enslavement in Southern Colorado at the Fort Garland Museum and Cultural Center. Located in the San Luis Valley, the exhibit uses large scale, street-style photography to highlight the history of Indigenous people held in captivity in Colorado. Thomas used photographic
installations to bring a personal, humanizing element to the history. The installation aimed to create a conversation about a challenging, rarely discussed aspect of American history.
Las Isla Memory Project involves a one- room school house attended by descendants of the Spanish who passed through during the last few centuries, commandeering, trading with, and enslaving Native Americans in the 18th and 19th century.
Architect Ronald Rael, Professor of Architecture at the University of California Berkeley, is leading the effort to preserve the Lafayette Head Home and Ute Indian Agency building and disseminate the history of the site as a cultural resource to the local and regional community. Rael is a descendant of the
families who accompanied Head to the Valley.
Chip Thomas, also known by his street art moniker jetsonorama, is a physician, public artist, and activist who practiced medicine in the Navajo Nation for over 30 years.
Marcie Moore Gantz is a lifelong resident of Colorado who believes that all communities deserve the opportunity to
preserve their cultural heritage and that the stories of all people, regardless of race, gender, or socioeconomic status, are critical to understanding our collective history.