April 1, 2026
On Thursday, April 2, the artists will speak about the exhibition alongside Wyandot Nation of Kansas Chief Judith Manthe, Monumenta Curator Neysa Page-Lieberman, and JCCC’s Dr. Tai Edwards.
This Spring, the Kansas Studies Institute at Johnson County Community College (JCCC) and the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art will host Trespassers Beware! Fort Conley and Wyandot Women Warriors. The special multimedia installation will be on view in the Regnier Center South Lawn through May 24 during the Nerman Museum’s operating hours.
Co-directed by the Wyandot Nation of Kansas and Monumenta, in collaboration with lead artists of the Omakyehstih Collective, the exhibition is a mobile monument that illuminates the story of the Conley sisters, who occupied the Wyandot cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas, to save their family’s burials from urban development.
The monument reimagines Fort Conley, the small dwelling the sisters built inside the Wyandot National Burying Ground and inhabited for years to defend their ancestors’ graves. While physically defending the burials, Lyda Conley took her fight to save the cemetery through the courts, becoming the first Indigenous woman to argue a case before the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Very few Kansans or metro area residents realize that Lyda Conley, a trailblazing historic figure in local history and in federal Indian law, defended the burials of her Wyandot relatives in downtown Kansas City, Kansas, and in the highest court in the land,” said Dr. Tai Edwards, Director of JCCC’s Kansas Studies Institute. “This art installation literally brings to life the efforts of Lyda Conley and her sisters, Ida and Helena, to preserve Wyandot sovereignty and challenge the U.S. government to uphold its treaty promises.”
This multimedia installation allows visitors to walk inside Fort Conley and witness the Conley sisters’ lives as they defended the cemetery. The installation incorporates video, music, writing, interpretation, and oral histories to explore the decades-long activism and legal arguments that protected this sacred land, which continue to impact preservation and tribal sovereignty movements in the present day.
On Thursday, April 2, the artists will speak about the exhibition alongside Wyandot Nation of Kansas Chief Judith Manthe, Monumenta Curator Neysa Page-Lieberman, and Dr. Tai Edwards. More information about the artist talk is available on the Nerman Museum calendar. It is free and open to the public, and will be held from 12:30 to 3 p.m.
Trespassers Beware! is generously funded by the National Endowment for the Arts / ArtsHERE, in partnership with Mid-America Arts Alliance, Mellon Foundation, Humanities Kansas, Kansas Studies Institute, and Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art at Johnson County Community College, Kansas Arts Commission, and individual donors.
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