ACLU sues Vail over Indigenous artist’s canceled residency

IN COURT

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Denver artist Danielle SeeWalker holds her painting “G is for Genocide.” Her work draws parallels between the plight of the Palestinian people and Indigenous Americans. PROVIDED BY DANIELLE SEEWALKER

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By John Wenzel

jwenzel@denverpost.com

The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado is suing the town of Vail over its dismissal of artist Danielle SeeWalker from an artist-in-residence program, following an April complaint about SeeWalker’s past work.

The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court, states that the town violated SeeWalker’s First Amendment rights in canceling her residency over political reasons before she’d even painted a single brushstroke.

“… SeeWalker’s free speech rights under the federal and state constitutions were violated when the town of Vail abruptly canceled her residency after she expressed her personal views on the war in Gaza on her social media page,” according to an ACLU of Colorado statement.

SeeWalker is an Indigenous artist and muralist, and a citizen of the Standing Rock Tribe of South Dakota. Her Hunkpapa Lakota heritage informs her work, and the piece in question, “G is for Genocide”, expresses solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The issue received international media coverage in May. “There seems to be an article or an interview about it almost every day, so I’m continuing to get feedback,” SeeWalker told The Denver Post earlier this year. “For the most part, they are positive responses.”

The ACLU of Colorado lawsuit maintains that the cancellation caused SeeWalker to lose out on jobs and came at a financial cost to her and her two children. “It also caused substantial emotional distress, shock, and sadness to SeeWalker and other Indigenous community members in Colorado and the U.S.,” according to a summary on the ACLU’s website. The full text of the 22-page complaint is available at aclu-co.org/en/cases/seewalker-v-vail.

Vail had originally launched its Art in Public Places program in 1992, and in November 2023 “adopted a new strategic plan to diversify the artists, perspectives, and materials represented in its public art collection,” according to the ACLU. Vail picked SeeWalker as its summer 2024 artist in residence in January, after which she and town officials began discussing the outlines of her work there.

The suit claims SeeWalker is entitled to monetary relief and “declaratory, and injunctive relief for Vail’s violation of her First Amendment rights.” The latter would compel Vail officials to acknowledge that her rights were violated and to prevent a politically minded can