To address misleading historical photos of the Navajo Nation, Albuquerque’s Maxwell Museum of Anthropology tapped Diné collaborators to fill in the gaps.
The Maxwell is located on Albuquerque’s University of New Mexico campus, in an easy-to-miss corner across from the Hibben Center for Archaeology Research, which has had a troubled (albeit evolving) relationship with Tlowitsis Nation due to a stolen totem pole at its main entrance. Visiting either institution leads to interactions with extracted items belonging to non-consenting families and their relatives.
These realities made me hesitant to visit this part of campus until I heard about a show at the Maxwell that takes on these histories. “Nothing Left for Me” stands as a compelling example of what can be done differently with the photographs and objects in anthropological institutions.
The exhibition was curated by Denetdale and Lillia McEnaney, who collaborated with Diné community members and non-Native staff of the Maxwell. There are two exhibition projects: this one at UNM, and a forthcoming show at the Navajo Nation Museum in Window Rock this August. The show at the Maxwell reframes Milton Snow’s photographs documenting the Navajo Livestock Reduction Program by pairing them with other material culture from the early- to mid-20th century and before.
Milton Snow was a non-Native photographer hired by the federal Navajo Service in 1937. Snow had a background in museum work, having photographed for the Los Angeles Museum and Museum of Northern Arizona. For this job spanning 1937 to ’57, Milton took thousands of photographs of Navajo people to be used as proof of modernization, prosperity, and success by showcasing new additions to Navajo lands. Snow’s work catered to Anglo ideals, depicting educational institutions, nuclear families, and agricultural “advancements” that aligned with the program’s stated goals.
“Nothing Left for Me” features Diné oral histories within the label text, presenting a radically different perspective from the one Snow meant to capture through his lens. A photograph of a schoolhouse is described by elders with relatives who lived during the period as a place where being Diné was punished. Students in Native American boarding schools were to detach themselves from the teachings of their community, their relationships dramatically altered by the colonial education that valued gender binaries, heterosexuality, monogamy, and individualism.
[The exhibition presents] a radically different perspective from the one Snow meant to capture through his lens.
Many Anglo photographers and artists have made a name for themselves through their portrayals of the land and the Native people that live here. The curators reckon with the unethical roots of these images and the act of taking and collecting them. As stated within the curatorial notes, “The legacies of photography, anthropology, and settler colonial polices are inextricably intertwined, each informing and generating the other.”
In order to better understand these entanglements, visitors are welcomed into a story that covers place, people, and their testimonies. Calling back to this idea of land-based thinking, one cannot move to the photographs by Snow without acknowledging the framing set out for us first. The entrance includes a large-scale map showcasing ancestral Navajo lands in the Four Corners region, from Blanca Peak to Mount Taylor, the San Francisco Peaks to Hesperus Mountain. The accompanying corner walls tell the story of the Long Walk, an experience referred to as the Hwéeldi (“place of suffering” in Diné).
In 1863, long before Milton Snow was born, the Navajo were forced off their homelands. In 1868 they returned to a much-reduced land base and were subjected to continual colonial violence. Milton Snow’s photographs documenting the Navajo Livestock Reduction Act are proof of this ongoing legacy of violence. The show takes us from 1863 through Snow’s twenty-year project, and features some contemporary Native photography as well (which included an overlapping photo exhibition by Rapheal Begay, and a collaboration with Axle Contemporary).
Throughout the exhibition there are reflection questions that prompt conversations and can act as a guide for internal and cross-generational dialogue between viewers such as, “how and why do photographs matter?”
Using this prompt for my own thoughts on the show, I wondered what it meant to be on campus and at the Maxwell. As a PhD student at UNM, the question had me thinking about all the land acknowledgments I’ve read on class syllabi, and how institutions might move beyond statements of inclusion to tangible action. Thoughtful word choice within labels and archival categories, as well as a reading list and reflection nook at the end of the show, gave me a deep sense of responsibility and relationality.
For this exhibition, the Maxwell worked with Indigenous people not just as contracted consultants but actual curators, label writers, researchers, and leads on this project, displaying a powerful model of equity that can be implemented within any curatorial process. Moving far beyond ideas of equity and multiculturalism that can easily become buzzwords of the field (or removed entirely given recent attacks on DEI efforts), the show’s many collaborators uncover the ugly roots of colonialism and capitalism that adorn New Mexico’s doorstep. Still, the move to return collections to their homes should not be dismissed.
What’s outside of the border [of these images]?
“Nothing Left for Me” invites us to reflect on the implications of our own gaze as well as Snow’s, as we breeze past all sorts of colonial images in our everyday lives (from the Albuquerque Dukes logo to conquistador statues).
This show and its lessons ripple into today, where we should not comply in advance to similar repetitions of history that often start at a federal level. Knowing how and why Snow and his predecessors made these photographs of landscapes and people can help us understand why stories have been left out—and consider what role we may play in recovering them.
As “Nothing Left for Me” co-curator Denetdale says, “What’s outside of the border [of these images]? And how could we bring our perspectives and experiences to be a part of the story?”
She continues this inquiry at the forthcoming Navajo Nation Museum show “Nihinaaldlooshii doo nídínééshgóó k’ee’ąą yilzhish dooleeł”/ “Our Livestock Will Never Diminish”: The Photography of Milton Snow and the Legacies of Livestock Reduction (1935-1959). Denetdale co-curates the exhibition with Clarenda Begay (Diné), with project management from McEnaney, this time engaging with the Snow collection at the Navajo Nation Museum. Denetdale and McEnaney are also co-editing a volume of the same title, set to be published by the University of New Mexico Press in summer 2026.
