Noah Mapes is an art historian who specializes in Indigenous North American art and material culture. His research primarily focuses on trans-historical Anishinaabe aesthetic practices and their role in governance. Noah’s dissertation project, tentatively titled “Aesthetics of the Treaty Relationship: An Art Historical Analysis of Anishinaabe Diplomacy,” investigates the agential and vital roles of art and objects in the formation of Anishinaabe political consciousness and diplomatic relations with settler colonial governments.
Alongside his work at Cornell, Noah has filled roles for several museums and exhibition projects. Currently, he is the assistant curator for the exhibition Deskaheh in Geneva 1923-2023: Defending Haudenosaunee Sovereignty, which opened in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2023, and which continues to travel. As a curatorial assistant at the Chazen Museum of Art, Noah curated Origin, Vision, Place, Voice: The Art of Truman Lowe (2021). Furthermore, Noah was a Native American Fellow at the Peabody Essex Museum, acting as a research assistant for On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America (2022).