2024 Projects

The Sky Loves to Hear Me Sing: Woodland Art in Transmotion

LPAC List Gallery, Swarthmore College

Swarthmore, Pennsylvania

Sept 12 - Oct 29th, 2024

Description

This exhibition highlights the dynamic, migratory, and sovereign nature of Woodland Native art across time. Drawing on Anishinaabe literary theorist Gerald Vizenor's concept of "transmotion," or the sovereign assertion of movement through time, place, and visionary narrative, the exhibition explores the capacity of images, styles, belongings, and artistic careers to contradict essentialized notions of “place” and identity. In the work of artists such as Norval Morrisseau (1932-2007, Ojibwe); Andrea Carlson (Ojibwe); Alan Michelson (Mohawk); and Native Art Department International, a collaborative partnership between Toronto-based artists Maria Hupfield (Anishinaabe, member of the Wasauksing First Nation) and Jason Lujan (Chiricahua Apache and Mexican), medium and form unmoor themselves from entrenched categories and roam broad sites of aesthetic and historical inquiry. These artists explore and embody visual movement(s) throughout the international meeting places of the Eastern Woodlands, challenging border regimes and colonial prerogatives while asserting the right to artistic migration in its manifold manifestations.

A public talk by Gerald Vizenor will be held on Thursday, September 19 at 4:30 PM in the Lang Performing Arts Center Cinema, followed by a panel discussion with participating artists, moderated by exhibition curator Christopher Green.

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