Hearts of Our People: Native Women Artists

The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) has curated the first major thematic exhibition to explore the artistic achievements of Native women. The exhibition, which will travel nationally, includes more than 115 works dating from ancient times to the present and made in a variety of media, including sculpture, video and digital arts, photography, textiles, and decorative arts. Drawn from Mia’s permanent collection and loans from more than 30 institutions and private collections, the works are from communities representing all regions of Native North America. The major sponsor is the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, and the exhibition is organized by Jill Ahlberg Yohe, PhD, associate curator of Native American Art at Mia, and Teri Greeves, an independent curator and member of the Kiowa Nation. An advisory panel of Native women artists and Native and non-Native scholars has provided insights from a range of nations.
Hearts of Our People elucidates the traditional role of Native women artists in serving the cultural, economic, diplomatic, and domestic needs of their communities, while also going beyond the longstanding convention of treating these artworks as unattributed representations of entire cultures. The contemporary works on view, in particular, will highlight the intentionality of the individual artist and demonstrate how the artist has been influenced by the preceding generations.
The exhibition continues through August 18 at Minneapolis Institute of Art, 2400 Third Ave S, Minneapolis. Call 1-888 642 2787 or visit@artsmia.org.