CURATORIAL PROJECTS
Landscapes in Conversation, Art Institute of Chicago, 2025
Diné textile rotations organized in collaboration with Diné weavers Barbara Teller Pete and Lynda Teller Ornelas, Art Institute of Chicago, 2024-2025
Unknown weaver (Navajo [Diné]), Men’s Wearing Blanket (Third Phase Chief Style), c. 1870–1880, wool, wedge tapestry weave, bound edges with corner tassels, with tassels: 165.1 × 195.6 cm (65 × 77 in.); Without tassels: 161.3 × 193.7 cm (63 1/2 × 76 1/4 in.), Art Institute of Chicago, Gift of the Powell Family in memory of their parents Father Peter Powell and Virginia Raisch Powell, 2023.2893
Installation viewGagizhibaajiwan, Center for Native Futures, 2024
Misshepezhieu, the Underwater Panther, lives below the water. Animikii, the Thunderbird, lives in the sky. These two beings live in constant conflict and constant relation, meeting along shorelines and whirling up storms. In Anishinaabe art they are often represented together, suggesting a way to hold duality’s tension. How do we reconcile what cannot be reconciled?
In Anishinaabemowin, gagizhibaajiwan (guh-gih-zhi-bah-jih-wun) is a continuous swirling motion of water portending the Underwater Panther’s emergence from under the surface. The churn mediates earth, water, and sky, implying fluid movement through layers of the world spanned by Misshepezhieu and Animikii. Gagizhibaajiwan features four Anishinaabe artists – Marcella Ernest (Gunflint Lake Ojibwe/Bad River Band of Lake Superior), Michael Belmore (Anishinaabe from Lac Seul First Nation), Renee Wasson Dillard (Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians), and Zoey Wood-Salomon (Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory) – who move through these layers in story and art, evoking Anishinaabe teachings on duality, ambiguity, and balance.
In the depths of sky and swirling water, there is room for paradox.
Renee Wasson Dillard, Dancer, 2020
Zoey Wood-Solomon, Journey Across the Great Lakes, 2024
Installation view of weavings and baskets by Renee Wasson Dillard and her mother, May Louise Ring
Michael Belmore, Turbulent Water | Sky, 2024
Installation view of Renee Wasson Dillard’s Naaknaakskoon Naakiniigan (Bulrush mat for ceremony) (2024) and Michael Belmore’s Resolve (2022)
Graphic design by Jacob Lindgren