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NMWA Celebrates Indigenous Culture with ‘Native Line + Rhythm’ Eve…
On March 3, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) in Jackson, Wyoming, is set to honor Indigenous art and culture through its ‘Native Line + Rhythm’ event, part of its popular First Sunday series. This special gathering, running from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., stands as a testament to the museum’s ongoing commitment to spotlighting Native artists and facilitating direct community engagement. Free museum admission for locals throughout the day ensures accessible participation in an event that not only showcases but celebrates the rich cultural heritage of the Native American community.
Spotlight on Tradition and Contemporary Expression
The event is poised to kick off with a drum circle by the Wind River Drummers, highlighting the cultural significance of music and dance in Northern Arapaho and Shoshone traditions. This powerful opening sets the stage for a day of deep cultural immersion and learning. Following this, attendees will be treated to a carving demonstration by Bruce Cook, a renowned Haida artist known for his intricate wood embellishments and totem poles. Cook’s presentation promises to delve into the blend of tradition and contemporary expression in Haida art, offering insights into the challenges and innovations that define modern Indigenous artistry.
Engagement and Education
In addition to the performances and demonstrations, the event will feature a clay line carving craft, allowing attendees of all ages to engage directly with Indigenous art forms. This hands-on activity, scheduled to run for the duration of the program, exemplifies the NMWA’s dedication to creating interactive and educational experiences that resonate with visitors. Through such initiatives, the museum not only honors its Land Acknowledgement statement but actively amplifies Native voices, fostering a deeper understanding and appreciation of Indigenous cultures among the wider community.
A Platform for Indigenous Artists
The collaboration with the Wind River Foundation for the third consecutive year underscores the NMWA’s role as a vital platform for Indigenous artists to share their work with the community. According to Michelle Dickson, Director of Program and Events at the NMWA, March First Sundays have become some of the most well-attended events of the winter season, reflecting the community’s growing interest in and support for Indigenous art. With each First Sunday event, the museum reaffirms its commitment to celebrating the diversity and richness of Indigenous cultures, ensuring their stories and traditions are shared and preserved for future generations.
As the ‘Native Line + Rhythm’ event approaches, the NMWA stands ready to offer a day of celebration, education, and engagement. Through the power of art, music, and dance, visitors will have the opportunity to connect with the profound heritage and enduring spirit of the Indigenous communities represented, fostering a greater appreciation and understanding of the vital roles these cultures play in our shared history and contemporary society.
Western Gallery exhibition showcases Native life beyond Indigenous history
Bellingham-born and Ferndale-raised Indigenous artist Sky Hopinka believes you don’t need permission to create the art you want to create.
At a recent artist talk at Western Washington University, the visiting Hopinka expanded on this motif while showcasing his own work, and highlighting the Western Gallery exhibition he curated.
The exhibition titled “What Was Always Yours and Never Lost” is on display through March 22. TVs lining the walls show experimental film, and several of Hopinka’s pieces are displayed in another section. The gallery contains works from various artists, connected by a shared theme of Indigenous history and identity.
“He’s dealing with issues that our constituency and our students are thinking about and dealing with — questions of identity, community, memory and culture,” Western Gallery Director Hafthor Yngvason said.
The exhibition name was inspired by a line in a 1950s film “Letter From an Unknown Woman,” and how the idea of always having something and never losing it relates to reclaiming Indigenous history.
Gallery Curator Zoe Fejeran’s favorite piece from this exhibition is “Mobilize” by First Nations filmmaker Caroline Monnet. The film shows an Indigenous journey from far north to the urban south, crafted out of archival footage.
Impressions of Indigenous life
In his own work, Hopinka focuses on Indigenous experimental film, and he seeks to “destabilize the authority that is inherent in the documentary gaze, and how that’s often centered on the white gaze.”
Instead, he highlights landscapes, revitalization and reclaiming myths. His abstract films are non-linear and visuals-based rather than following a narrative structure in an attempt to evoke a feeling or impression. Hopinka also works with written word, music and photography, and often the different mediums meld together to create a final product, like in his series “The Breathings,” which featured photographs etched with handwritten descriptors.
One of the first experimental short films Hopinka produced, “Wawa,” was about the Chinook Wawa language he learned in Portland, Oregon. The project led to more works relating to his Ho-Chunk background on his father’s side, and the songs that were passed down. Hopinka explored a similar idea in his short film “Kicking the Clouds,” but about his mother’s heritage, which is Pechanga.
Many of Hopinka’s ideas stem from questions he has on his mind, such as “I’ll Remember You as You Were, Not As What You’ll Become,” a film that explored the Ho-Chunk belief in reincarnation.
When Hopinka made his first short film, he wanted to create something that was focused on who Indigenous people are today, not the history of who they were. Hopinka emphasized in an interview that “you don’t need permission to make these films that you want to make.”
In a film called “Fainting Spells,” Hopinka made up a myth about a medicinal plant the Ho-Chunk Tribe used to wake people up after fainting. The film begins with a faraway recording of a TV showing a controlled burn, then goes on to show handwritten, scrolling text over moving images, telling the story he created.
That film was one of art professor Monique Kerman’s favorite pieces from Hopinka’s talk, because of the integration of narrative and abstract storytelling structures, and the idea of creating a myth.
Coming up, Hopinka has a solo exhibition in New York with 12 new pieces and is working on post-production for a feature-length documentary “Powwow People,” filmed at Daybreak Star Indian Cultural Center in Seattle.
Hopinka’s work is available at skyhopinka.com.
“Dreaming Our Futures” exhibit at University of Minnesota showcases Indigenous artists
This video was shot and edited by photojournalist Tony Peterson.
MINNEAPOLIS — A vibrant and provocative art show is currently showing on the University of Minnesota campus in the Twin Cities.
The exhibit, called “Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Očhéthi Šakówiŋ Artists and Knowledge Keepers,” features the work of 29 Indigenous artists. Those artists include Jim Denomie, Jonathan Thunder, Cole Redhorse Taylor, Moira Villiard and many more. The artists are all from the Midwest or have family or tribal connections to the land.
Brenda Child (Red Lake Ojibwe) is the Northrop Professor of American Studies at the university and one of the curators of the exhibit. Child is also married to one of the Ojibwe artists featured in the show, Steve Premo.
“We have had great art traditions for years and years,” Child said. “We even have fantastic fine artists — like George Morrison, Oscar Howe, Patrick DesJarlait — who are in our major art museums of the United States.”
Steve Premo
Child says Native American representation in places like the university is crucial.
“I’d really like to see that Native people when they come to the University of Minnesota — especially young people that we want to come here as college students — that they see themselves in exhibits,” Child said. “There’s more that we can do in Minnesota to understand Native peoples’ history and their cultures and their politics. And understand that they are sovereign peoples who predated anything called Minnesota.”
The exhibit premiered in mid-January and is the inaugural event of the George Morrison Center for Indigenous Arts. The new center, named after the late Grand Portage Ojibwe artist and former faculty member George Morrison, is meant to support the “creation, presentation, and interpretation of Indigenous art in all its forms,” according to the university.
You can see the exhibit through March 16. It’s at the Katherine E. Nash Gallery on the University of Minnesota campus in Minneapolis.
The exhibit will move on to the Rochester Art Center after its time in Minneapolis.
NOTE: Web producer Cole Premo, who edited this story, is the nephew of Ojibwe artist Steve Premo.
‘Guardians of the forest’: How art made from the ashes of Amazon Rainforest fires is helping Indigenous communities
Editor’s Note: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial series committed to reporting on the environmental challenges facing our planet, together with the solutions. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet initiative has partnered with CNN to drive awareness and education around key sustainability issues and to inspire positive action.
Perched on a branch amidst the cover of darkness is a Xingu screech owl with piercing, fiery amber eyes. Created by British artist Sarah Ball, the artwork is titled “Megascops Stangiae,” referring to the scientific name of this species only found in the Indigenous Xingu region of Brazil.
The striking work is unique not just for its subject matter, but for how it was made: the owl’s primarily black and gray pastels were created with ash left behind after wildfires in the Amazon rainforest.
It’s part of a project called “From the Ashes,” an exhibition that ran in February at London’s Truman Brewery. Featuring 29 Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists, all the works were created using ink, pigment and pastels manufactured from ash and charcoal “salvaged from the burnt remnants of the Amazon,” says Migrate Art, the London-based social enterprise that created the project.
In partnership with arts research center People’s Palace Projects, the goal is to help combat damage from the fires by raising money for Indigenous communities on the front lines.
In March, the artworks will be auctioned at Christie’s London with estimates for individual pieces ranging from £2,000 ($2,530) to over £50,000 ($63,440), according to Simon Butler, founder of Migrate Art and a participating artist in the exhibition.
“We keep 20% of what we make, that’s for overheads and rent. The rest of it goes to the Indigenous Xingu community, primarily for firefighting equipment,” he said. “All these ideas of what to do with the money, they’re not coming from us, they’re coming from the community themselves. When we were there, we had meetings with them and they talked about the fire brigade they wanted to develop, and they also talked about regrowing trees and reforesting.”
The Amazon rainforest, which is crucial for trapping and storing carbon emissions, is facing a tipping point by 2050 that could have devastating consequences. According to the non-profit Amazon Aid, the primary driver of wildfires in the Amazon rainforest is deforestation for agriculture, logging, and other economic opportunities.
Takumã Kuikuro, a filmmaker and curator from the Indigenous territory in Brazil’s Amazon basin, calls the Indigenous community “guardians of the forest.”
“We are the main victims of climate change,” he said. “Since the violent fires of 2019 to 2022, we have been suffering from extreme heat and drought that threaten animals, trees, rivers and food crops such as cassava, the basis of our diet, which are not thriving due to lack of rain.”
Can art change the world?
Butler visited the Amazon rainforest and its Indigenous Xingu communities two years ago. Witnessing the areas of the forest that had been burnt down, which he describes as a “red desert that looked like the end of the world,” motivated him to create change in the way he knew best: through art.
Inspired by the success of Migrate Art’s previous exhibitions, such as “Scorched Earth,” which featured art made from the ash of war zones in Iraqi Kurdistan, Butler collected the charred remains of the rainforest, and shipped it back to London to be made into art materials.
The materials were then sent to artists around the world. British artist Piers Secunda, whose work focuses on the destruction of culture, used black ink to create a painting titled “Smoke In The Jungle.”
“The sale of my work to help the Xingu Reserve buy firefighting equipment, to extinguish Amazon fires, is the best use of my time and resources that I can imagine,” he said.
The collection also includes works made by members of the Indigenous community, such as three paintings by Kamo Waurá, a village shaman.
“To see art without any kind of influence from the market for financial reasons is amazing,” said Butler. “It’s pure storytelling.”
Ultimately, Migrate Art asks a single question: “Can art change the world?” Secunda likens art to a sharp stick which can “prod the right people into action, to publicly embarrass organizations, governments and individuals who are causing damage, or to raise funds.”
“These art advocacy actions are grains of sand which build a pile,” he added. “For now, the pile is small, but it is growing and will become substantial.”
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++ILLUMINATE++ Brings Indigenous Dance, Song and Fashion to Center of Contemporary Art in Santa Fe
- Details
- By Kaili Berg
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February 26, 2024
On February 10, the Center of Contemporary Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico, hosted ++ILLUMINATE++, a showcase of Indigenous creativity and empowerment organized by Native-owned sustainable art wear brand 4KINSHIP.
Teaming up with the International Museum of Dance (IMOD), ++ILLUMINATE++ was an immersive experience that blended light, movement, sound, and fashion.
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The event raised funds for 4KINSHIP Indigenous Futures Fund, an initiative dedicated to reinvesting in Native-led events and amplifying Indigenous artists through media platforms.
“The essence of the 4KINSHIP Indigenous Futures Fund is being good relatives and amplifying opportunities through media,” Amy Denet Deal, founder of 4KINSHIP, told Native News Online. “We create safe spaces where Indigenous voices are heard, surrounded by family, to authentically share their stories. Often, our presence in mainstream spaces feels performative, so we prioritize honoring our identity and building supportive, creative environments as relatives.”
The evening kicked off with a performance by Lucca, a two-spirit Afro-Indigenous musician and artist. Lucaa’s storytelling explored themes of identity, sexuality, and resilience. Joined by dancer Povi Martinez, Lucaa’s music came to life through emotive movement, setting the tone for an evening of profound artistic expression.
Throughout the event, the crowd was treated to hoop-dancing solos by James Jones and ShanDien Sonwai LaRance, accompanied by talented youth from the Lightning Boy Foundation.
Echota Killsnight and Conscious City Guide provided visual storytelling, while Josephine Pu-Sheng Wang’s illuminating light design added an extra layer of magic to the event.
Multifaceted artist Edwin Felter closed the show with a solo performance titled “Rez Dog Gospel,” leaving the audience in awe of his talent and creativity.
“Everyone did great. Some performances were raw, prompting a few to leave, but that’s a good sign. It means we’re addressing important truths for our city. With a Native-led organization running the show, we created a safe space for honesty. It’s time to be brave and speak out more,” Denet Deal said.
Denet Deal added that 4KINSHIP Indigenous Futures Fund aims to continue to amplify Indigenous creativity.
“The potential of Indigenous creativity surpasses our wildest imaginations. It requires unwavering support from all sides to pave the way for a transformative future,” she said.
A livestreamed recording of ++ILLUMINATE++ can be watched on 4KINSHIP’s YouTube channel.
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Indigenous artists take centre stage in Naarm
Native American artist visits with CPHS students
Students at Champlin Park High School have been studying the work of Jonathan Thunder, an artist and member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwe, as a part of the English 11 curriculum.
The IB curriculum at CPHS fulfills the state requirements of celebrating the works and voices of the Anishinabe people, where students study both non-literary bodies of work and literary works concerning common themes. Thunder’s work is rich with symbolism and allusions to tribal and Western pop culture.
The Best Of Contemporary Indigenous Art Makes Rare Appearance In North Carolina
For Nancy Strickland Fields (Lumbee) it was like something out of a dream. Returning from taking one of her University of North Carolina Pembroke Museum Studies classes to visit the Town Creek Indian Mound State Historic Park, they had time to kill and stopped at the Rankin Museum of American Heritage in Ellerbe, population 1,000.
“Very small, couple of thousand square foot museum, that sort of typical thing you find on the back roads of anywhere in the country,” Fields told Forbes.com. “The guy that started the museum was a doctor and he started buying Native art in the 40s and the early 50s.”
The Institute of American Indian Arts Museum Studies graduate, former employee of the Smithsonian National Museum of the America Indian in Washington, D.C., and director/curator of the Museum of the Southeast American Indian at UNC Pembroke’s expectations were low. She could never have imagined what was waiting for her inside.
“I about lost it,” Fields remembers as if it happened yesterday. “There is a Maria Martinez and Julian (Martinez) pot sitting on the floor in this atmospheric natural history environment of desert sand and the tufts of gasses and I was like, ‘what the hell!’ Then I looked around and it just multiplied over and over again.”
Maria Martinez (1887–1980; San Ildefonso Pueblo) may be the most famous Indigenous artist ever for her iconic black-on-black pottery produced in conjunction with her husband, Julian (1879–1943; San Ildefonso Pueblo). Having met four presidents–or four presidents having met her–gives some indication of her stature. Finding a Maria Martinez pot in a DIY museum on a country road in North Carolina strains believability.
The story gets better.
“I walked over to this u-shaped case and there was a collection of archaeological pottery–early stuff–and this pot absolutely grasped my soul. It was absolute perfection,” Fields said. “It was well balanced. It was huge! (It had) this beautiful beaded rim, super thin composition, the clay itself was perfection–no cracks, no bubbles, no hairline fractures, nothing.”
The piece was pre-contact and from the area that is now North Carolina. Everything about it was exceptional and rare.
“All of a sudden I found myself in conversation with the maker,” Fields recalls.
What was that conversation?
“’Who were you?’ ‘Who taught you this?’ ‘How many times did you make a pot like this,’” Fields repeats. “I started envisioning a woman, digging clay, cleaning the clay, running it through a sieve. I can see her hand. You are absolutely magnificent.”
A flood of emotions nearly overwhelmed her.
“As Native peoples, when we make objects, there is an intent when you give that object shape, you’re bringing all of the elements together, you’re putting yourself into it–and I saw her there–you’re putting that knowledge into practice,” Fields explains. “As an artist, you’re remembering the lessons that you learned and what you saw. Then the intent with the meaning. What does it mean to make this pot? What is its purpose? What life is it going to have? And of course, our objects are alive, so how did this artist put that intent and that spirit in that piece of pottery?”
She’ll never forget it.
“As I sat there, it just came to me: this is the show,” Fields said.
What show?
Glad you asked.
‘To Take Shape And Meaning’
Jamie Okuma (Luiseño/Shoshone-Bannock/Wailaki/Okinawan), Adaptation II, 2012, shoes designed by … [+]
Photo: Minneapolis Institute of Art
The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh’s history dates back to 1924. In its 100-year existence, it has never presented an exhibition of Native American art. Never.
NCMA leadership asked Fields to change that. To make history by curating an exhibition of Native American art there.
Fields’ initial idea was too high concept for a museum just learning about Native American art. Something else was required. Something she couldn’t pin down until that day in Ellerbe.
The Rankin Museum pot and its once-known maker cleared the logjam in her mind.
“The show, ‘To Take Shape and Meaning: Form and Design in Contemporary American Indian Art’ reflects that heritage. It reflects that cultural continuum that is still carried forward,” Fields said.
Presenting exclusively 3-D works, “To Take Shape and Meaning” brings together 75 Native American contemporary artists, most of them living artists, representing over 50 tribes across the U.S. and Canada. It is rooted in reverence for tradition while pushing the boundaries of contemporary interpretation.
The works demonstrate the continuity and evolution of Native and Indigenous arts in contemporary culture, including baskets made out of blown glass, cars transformed into works of art, and cutting-edge fashion ensembles embellished with goose feathers and turkey quills, all revealing transitions of place, experiments in materiality, and meanings blended from present-day and traditional beliefs.
The Best Of The Best
Virgil Ortiz (Cochiti Pueblo), Convergence, Defenders Descend from Portal to Pueblo, 2023, Cochiti … [+]
Courtesy NCMA
“To Take Shape and Meaning” features the 21st century’s most iconic Indigenous makers and their most iconic objects. Fields has assembled the contemporary Native Art equivalent of “The Avengers.”
The checklist is astonishing.
Marie Watt Blanket Story. Yep.
Preston Singletary glasswork. Yep.
Virgil Ortiz Indigenous futurism ceramic. Yep.
Jamie Okuma beaded stilettos. Yep.
Jeffrey Gibson punching bag, the kind of which led him to being selected as the first Native American artist to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale. Yep.
Raven Halfmoon monumental figure. Yep.
“The show itself, as we were putting together the catalog, was taking on its own shape and meaning,” Fields said. “What all of these pieces are saying collectively, and how they’re operating together, and that energy they’re bringing, this chorus of voices of artists from around the country, talking about their genealogy, talking about their rootedness, their place of being.”
The piece de resistance, the cherry on top, the icing on the cake, Rose B. Simpson’s one-of-a-kind Maria, her iconic interpretation of a Maria Martinez black-on-black pot applied to a 1985 El Camino.
“This is badass,” Fields remembers thinking when Maria arrived at NCMA. “I was like I need to lay down, I’m gonna’ faint.”
Simpson’s Maria marks the second time the great matriarch of Modern Pueblo pottery has intersected with “To Take Shape and Meaning.” The third time, unquestionably, proves how her spirit is watching over the show and again strains believability.
The North Carolina Museum of Art had exactly one piece of Native American art in its collection prior to staging this exhibition: a black-on-black Maria Martinez pot. It will be on view next to Maria.
The Museum has subsequently purchased a handful of contemporary Native pieces from Watt, Singletary, Ortiz and others.
The historic pot from the Rankin Museum which sparked Fields’ imagination in putting this show together will not be included. Her research revealed it to be a funerary urn and NCMA’s policy, thankfully, prohibits the display of Native American funerary objects.
“I don’t want (visitors) just to lean into the aesthetic … and I don’t want people to lean into the surprise,” Fields said. “They need to understand the why. Why are they creating, and what did they go through to do this, to create this, and the time that that’s put into it, and the cultural knowledge.”
Native North Carolina
Kathleen Wall (Jemez Pueblo), Holding Her Culture, (2023). Jemez Clay, slip, underglaze; 28” X 10” X … [+]
© 2023 Kitty Leaken
For a state with the largest number of citizens identifying as Native American east of the Mississippi River, finding Native American art on view in North Carolina is exceedingly rare.
“It’s not easy to do at all and that is another reason this exhibition is so important,” Fields said. “That shows a value system, so if a region is highlighting and sharing Native culture it’s saying, to a degree, we value this culture, we value these people. They’re an important part of who we are.”
The region has not historically valued Indigenous people.
“We’re in the South. We are still living out these legacies of colonialism, but furthering that is Jim Crow, and Jim Crow was not that long ago,” Fields said. “When you look at the effects of Jim Crow, that pushed this ideology that Indians are worthless, don’t have any value with the exception of labor, and so that makes it really hard to take pride and express cultural identity and art.”
As far back as the early 1700s, North Carolina passed a law forbidding Indigenous people from having any kinds of cultural expression, a policy the United States would enact in the following century.
“A cultural Indian (in North Carolina) was a dead Indian in the early 1700s, and as families move forward to just exist–that core human agency to survive–there was a lot of things that were let go,” Fields explained.
Eight North Carolina artists are featured in the exhibit.
Related Programming
The public is invited to celebrate the opening of “To Take Shape and Meaning” on March 2 with a full day of Indigenous art and culture. Visitors can join open studios to create alongside traditional basket weavers and Southeastern gorget makers, and meet leading Native American artists. Lumbee culture dancers and drummers will perform. Native food vendors will be on hand.
Admission is free and includes access to “To Take Shape and Meaning.”
Fields will also be leading one-hour tours of the exhibition starting at 1:00 PM on March 2, April 20, May 18 and June 8. Admission is free, but RSVP is required.
“To Take Shape and Meaning: Form and Design in Contemporary American Indian Art” will remain on view at the North Carolina Museum of Art through July 28, 2024.
