Native American Heritage Celebration

Native American Heritage Celebration is the celebration of the history, culture, traditions and contributions of Native Americans. The celebration is recognized nationally every November, but is a celebration that lasts throughout the year.

2020 Resource Guide

Showing of Mino-Bimaadiziwin

Tuesday, December 8, 2020
4:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.
Via Zoom

RSVP

A special viewing of a GVSU alumni, Ishkwaazhe Shane McSauby’s Sundance Film, Mino-Bimaadiziwin and discussion to follow.

showing of Mino-Bimaadiziwin

The Art of the People: A Conversation with Shirley Brauker, Jason Quigno, and Jonathan Thunder

Wednesday, February 3, 2021

6:00 - 7:00 PM

RSVP NOW

Join us for a virtual event co-sponsored by the GVSU Office of Multicultural Affairs and the Muskegon Museum of Art, Wednesday, February 3rd at 6:00pm. Artists Shirley Brauker, Jason Quigno, and Jonathan Thunder will join Dylan A.T. Miner, Director of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at Michigan State University, in conversation about their artwork in the exhibition The Art of the People: Contemporary Anishinaabe Artists, as well as their creative processes and contemporary issues in the indigenous community. The Art of the People exhibition is currently on view at both the Muskegon Museum of Art and the Grand Valley State University Art Gallery. The exhibition is curated by artist Jason Quigno and features nationally recognized and early career Native American artists working in a wide array of media that combine cultural traditions and imagery with contemporary sensibilities and themes.

Brauker works in the tradition of ledger art, creating paintings of patterns and narrative events that emphasize foreground objects over sparse, even empty backgrounds. The term “ledger art” comes from the use of ledger books by Native Americans of the Plains beginning the 19th century and Brauker utilizes this traditional material to address contemporary issues and narratives.

Quigno creates monumental stone sculptures by hand carving and polishing some areas while exposing the stone’s raw texture in other areas, achieving both abstract and harmonious naturalistic forms. With the goal of creating a sense of peace, Quigno uses simple lines to craft fluid movement referencing the stories and oral traditions of the Saginaw Chippewa Tribe.

Thunder infuses his Ojibwe perspectives with real-time experiences using a wide range of mediums. He is known for his large-scale paintings with surreal imagery, as well as animated films and installations in which he addresses subject matter from loss and recovery of Indigenous sovereignty, environmental welfare, and humorous social commentary. Masked and animalistic characters in surreal and abstract environments often set the stage in these allegories Thunder describes as “vignettes”.

The Art of the People: Contemporary Anishinaabe Art is on view at the MMA and GVSU Art Gallery through February 2021. For more information visit the Muskegon Museum of Art or the GVSU Art Gallery .

RSVP Required.

Groundswell: Learning the Indigenous Way of Being

Tuesday, March 16, 2021
7:00 p.m. - 8:30 p.m.
Via Zoom

RSVP

We are excited to invite you to join us for an exploration of Anishinaabe teachings and relationality around protecting the environment. Increase your awareness of Anishinaabe culture and traditions and how to integrate these into your classroom to support environmental education.

Dr. Andrea Riley-Mukavetz, an Assistant Professor in the Integrative, Religious, and Intercultural Studies Department at Grand Valley State University, will discuss how information can be passed from generation to generation (the Anishinaabe way) and how it relates to storytelling and the use of rhetoric. Hunter Genia, MSW, a GVSU alumnus, will discuss how history shapes who we are as a people, and adds to our cross-generational and cross-cultural conversations.