Radiant Geometries: Vectors of Knowledge from the Indigenous Americas explores contemporary expressions of math, science, and technology in Indigenous knowledge systems. Through a framing of North, Central, and South America as interconnected regions, the group show includes Melissa Cody, Nanibah Chacon, Jordan Ann Craig, Patricia Domínguez, Sara Flores, Kite, Natalia Montoya Lecaros, Patrick Martinez, Cisco Merel, Caroline Monnet, and Eamon Ore-Giron.
At a moment when the social and environmental consequences of technological advancement are prompting global concern, this selection of works — among them paintings, sculptures, textiles, video works, and site-specific commissions — conveys the value of relational teachings in this ongoing debate.
Set on the campus of a leading research university, the presentation includes artists whose works evoke the symbiotic relationship between art, math, technology, and science, often through the language of abstraction.
Among them, Sara Flores’s paintings foreground the interdependence of all life forms and call attention to interspecies care; Patrick Martinez’s painted sculpture, inspired by the pre-Columbian murals of Cacaxtla, positions Indigenous architecture as sites of material knowledge and urban intelligence; Natalia Montoya Lecaros’s totemic sculptures draw on an Aymara ceremonial dance that honors agricultural cycles; Caroline Monnet’s Styrofoam installation etched with Anishinaabe iconography, reconsiders colonial legacies in architecture; Patricia Domínguez’s videos explore astronomy and plant intelligence to bridge spiritual and scientific divides; Cisco Merel’s totemic work references protective sigils found in Guna textile traditions; and Melissa Cody’s jacquard tapestry fuses Navajo textile traditions with computational aesthetics.
In addition, newly commissioned works by Ore-Giron and Chacon extend the visibility of knowledge as an evolving technology, illuminating its transmission across generations while continuously responding to the future.
The exhibition, running September 4 – December 19, 2026, opens with a reception featuring remarks from Nanibah Chacon and Natalia Montoya Lecaros. Subsequent public programming features a collaboration with Danza Azteca Macuilxochitl and Nameless Sound, as well as Eamon Ore-Giron in conversation with Rice Professor Lori Boornazian Diel, and Steven Gullberg, Professor of Cultural Astronomy at the University of Oklahoma.
