Join Cranbrook Academy of Art at deSalle Auditorium for the 2026 Swanson Lecture, delivered by community designer and educator Joseph Kunkel, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation. Kunkel is focused on sustainable development practices for Indigenous communities.

Kunkel’s lecture, "Land Back – Design Forward", reframes the Land Back movement beyond questions of ownership, property, or acknowledgment. For Indigenous peoples, connection to land has always been defined through relationships—relationships of stewardship, responsibility, and reciprocity that have guided communities for millennia. Yet contemporary systems shaping our built environment have rarely recognized these ways of relating to land. Through examples, his lecture will explore architecture, planning, and design approaches that begin to unravel these deeper relationships, moving beyond development toward practices that support cultural continuity, ecological stewardship, and community resilience.