Site 13, ArtPath Mural, “Land Defender Elder” 2023
Land Defender Elder is part of the sixth annual ArtPath celebration in Lansing, MI. This work is on the east side of Shiawassee Bridge in Adado River Front Park and was exhibited from May 29th—September 4th, 2023.
This mural tells the flood story of the Anishinaabe people. When the world was still young, she was only sky and water. Our stories tell us that the first person to inhabit the Earth fell through a hole in the sky and her name was Sky Woman. The animals in the water knew that Sky Woman would need a place to rest so the loon dove down to retrieve some Earth from the bottom of the water. When the loon could not retrieve anything the beaver offer to dive down into the water. But the beaver too could not reach the bottom. It was then the otter offered to dive below to retrieve the Earth but he could not make it. Then, in a small voice, the muskrat spoke up and said that he would swim to the bottom to help Sky Woman. Muskrat was underestimated and even laughed at by the other animals. But Sky Woman was falling faster and the animals were growing desperate.
Muskrat took a deep breathe and dove down below the surface. Muskrat was down there for so long that the other animals began to worry and fear that they may never see their friend again.
But Muskrat came back. He was weak and he wasn’t breathing but in his little paw he held a small mound of Earth from the bottom of the water. The Turtle saw his sacrifice and instructed the animals to put muskrat and the mound of dirt on the back of the turtle shell. From the mound of Earth grew the continents of North and Central America and is part of the reason many Anishinaabe people call this place “Turtle Island.”
Although I had done site-specific works in the past this is my first public outdoor mural. While it is temporary installation I do hope to do more murals and public art projects in the near future.
My People’s Migration is an installation on display at the Great Lakes Children’s Museum from August 2022 to August 2023 details and illustrates the migration of the Anishinaabe people and specific iconography to represent their stories. The figures at the bottom stand in for the current fight for Indigenous land and life against colonial violence like resource extraction, cultural appropriation, and exclusion from dominant historical narratives. The images on the wall represent the seven fires prophecy given to the Ansihinaabe that told them to travel west until they found ‘the food that floats on the water,” or our wild rice. If you look closer you can see symbols for cowrie shells, whitefish, Mishipeshu, and the Line 5 pipeline in the Straits of Mackinac.
Red Like Blood, Sacred Like Water is an ofrenda installation made and meant to honor the lives my Anishinaabe community has lost to the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Transgender, and 2-Spirit people, or MMIWGT2S. What many misunderstand about the MMIWGT2S crisis is that it’s never just our women who go missing or murdered—it’s our mothers, cousins, aunties, ceremony holders, language speakers, fiercest water protectors, and land defenders who are lost from our communities too. This ofenda features ink paintings, beadwork, copper prayer bowls, black ash baskets, jingle dress cones, and eagle feathers. The small orange circles are stand-ins for those who never returned from Indian boarding schools. These ink paintings are part of an ongoing series titled The (In)Visible.
Creation Story was my first installation made to center my thesis show when I graduated from Interlochen Arts Academy in 2019. The Anishinaabe creation story says that the Earth grew when muskrat placed the very first handful of dirt on the shell of the great turtle. On the cutout turtle shell you can see imagery for all four elements, fire, air, water, and Earth, and a medicine wheel symbol in the middle. The white swirls are for the water, where the turtle swam before the Earth was made and the lifeblood of Mother Earth. The origami triangles arranged around the turtle are meant to be our homelands, the land that raised and protected us and provides us still with everything we need. Materials used were white butcher paper, origami paper, and a wall safe adhesive.