JACKSON, Wyo. — Artist Nani Chacon, whose mural “Damma Newadaygwapgay Nasoowazeet (Never Forget Our Language)” is featured on the exterior of the Jackson Hole History Museum, has been selected for the 2026 Whitney Biennial.
Hosted by the Whitney Museum of American Art since 1932, this edition of the survey features the work of 56 artists who reflect “the current moment and [examine] various forms of relationality, including interspecies kinships, familial relations, geopolitical entanglements, technological affinities, shared mythologies and infrastructural supports.”
According to a joint statement by History Jackson Hole and Jackson Hole Public Art, which collaborated to commission the museum mural, Chacon’s work exemplifies those forms of relationality.
“The mural functions as a conceptual billboard reclaiming public space for the Eastern Shoshone people, whose ancestors have called this region home for generations,” the statement reads. “By foregrounding Shoshone language, the work reconnects land, culture, and memory, asserting presence where it has too often been erased.”
For the museum mural, Diné artist Chacon collaborated with Shoshone educator and language specialist Lynette St. Clair from the Wind River Reservation.
“The phrase ‘Never Forget Our Language’ is both a reminder and an invitation,” said History Jackson Hole Executive Director Morgan Albertson Jaouen. “Language provides knowledge, connection and context. We are grateful to partner and work together to showcase this message place on a prominent Museum wall, honoring Shoshone people and their culture – past, present and future.”
The joint statement emphasizes the salience of platforming Indigenous public art in a location “historically shaped by settler narratives.”
“When you put something in a space, there’s an act of reclamation,” Chacon said in the statement. “Public art disrupts hierarchies. It exists outside walls and admission. Everybody can see it, everybody can understand it, and that’s how we begin to build relationships.”
“Nani’s work speaks locally and resonates nationally because it is rooted in truth, place, and lived experience,” added Carrie Geraci, executive director of Jackson Hole Public Art.
Visitors to the Whitney in New York City can see the exhibit beginning on March 8, 2026.
