ACLU Sues Vail for Removing Native Artist Danielle SeeWalker From Residency

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is representing Denver muralist Danielle SeeWalker in a civil complaint against the Town of Vail, which removed the Native artist and activist from its Art in Public Places residency program just weeks before it began. SeeWalker told us in May that she was informed of the decision in a three-minute phone call, in which AIPP coordinator Molly Eppard said that her mixed-media piece "G for Genocide" — created months earlier — had upset community members and that "we can't have somebody like you being too political coming into our community to create art."

The lawsuit was filed on Indigenous Peoples Day, which SeeWalker says was an intentional decision. "Indigenous voices have been censored for generations," she says. "My perspective on it is that it has to stop, and if I don't speak up on it, who's going to do it for me? Vail and other local governments need to know that they can't deny constitutional rights of artists or humans in general."

After the residency dismissal had made waves via the media, SeeWalker says, multiple law firms reached out to her to inquire if she wanted to be represented on the infringement of her First Amendment rights. "I dismissed all of it, not thinking this would ever go in that direction," she recalls. "But then the ACLU reached out and crafted a really lovely email...and I just thought, 'You know what? ACLU is a very reputable institution, and I really appreciate what they stand for.' We had a lot of back-and-forth, and now we are where we are today."
While she wasn't able to do the residency, SeeWalker, who is a Húŋkpapȟa Lakȟóta and a citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe of North Dakota, was asked to come to the Vail Symposium in June for an artist talk. Speaking at the event was meant to be a part of her residency, the artist and activist says, but the organization "reached out to me shortly after the cancellation happened, and said, 'Hey, we just want to reach out and let you know that we're separate from the Town of Vail, we're our own organization, and we actually do appreciate and highlight diverse voices. If you're still open to it, we'd love to have you come back to do the Symposium.'"

SeeWalker recalls she didn't respond immediately because she was "feeling all sorts of ways," she says. "But ultimately, because I never had the opportunity to talk to anybody from Vail about this, I thought it was a great opportunity to go into that community and share my perspective."

She says it "went well, for the most part," and she had a lot of supporters there. However, ahead of the event, she had to "get on several different phone calls with a team of people from the Symposium to discuss what should be said or not said," SeeWalker says. "So again, it felt very censored."

"Even during the open Q&A at the end, somebody did stand up and say, 'Hey, we just want to hear more about the residency and why it was canceled and your thoughts on that,' and it got shut down before I could even respond," she says. "One other thing that really made my ears perk up and look in a different way was they had a team of police there on site during the Symposium."

SeeWalker has made a name for her murals and mixed-media work, which often showcase Indigenous themes. When Vail offered her the residency, she didn't even know the town had such a program. Ironically, she remembers that one of the reasons the AIPP pointed to when inviting her was diversity. "We've never had a Native American in our program, and we'd love to have you come in and share that [perspective] with our community," she recalls being told. 
"I was really excited about that opportunity," she says. "But as soon as I didn't fit the mold of what their 'diversity' was as a Native person, it made me feel super tokenized. It's what 'diverse' means to them, not pure diversity."

Throughout her career, SeeWalker has not faced censorship "of this magnitude," she says. "I've been very fortunate to be able to openly and freely express myself as an artist on a whole variety of topics as it relates to Native American people, community, culture, histories, art, etc. There are always people who question things or don't understand things, but not ever to this level, where I've been censored or I've been canceled. It's just beyond."

Kris Widlak, director of Vail's communications department, tells Westword that the town has not been formally served and does not comment on active litigation.