by Marlena Myles, Tamara Aupaumut, Elsa Hoover, Dawí, James D. Autio, Jess Grams, Andrea Fairbanks Hope Flanagan, at the American Indian Cultural Corridor, Northern Spark 2019. Photo Credit: Ne-dah-ness Greene
by Marlena Myles, Tamara Aupaumut, Elsa Hoover, Dawí, James D. Autio, Jess Grams, Andrea Fairbanks Hope Flanagan, at the American Indian Cultural Corridor, Northern Spark 2019. Photo Credit: Ne-dah-ness Greene
by Marlena Myles, Tamara Aupaumut, Elsa Hoover, Dawí, James D. Autio, Jess Grams, Andrea Fairbanks Hope Flanagan, at the American Indian Cultural Corridor, Northern Spark 2019. Photo Credit: Ne-dah-ness Greene
by Marlena Myles, Tamara Aupaumut, Elsa Hoover, Dawí, James D. Autio, Jess Grams, Andrea Fairbanks Hope Flanagan, at the American Indian Cultural Corridor, Northern Spark 2019. Photo Credit: Ne-dah-ness Greene
For more Northern Spark 2019 images, visit our flickr album here. Watch our videos here: Northern Spark 2019.
Indigenous political actions often rely on the occupying of spaces built on their home lands, and for two nights the Franklin Library will become a cultural embassy held as a place to welcome residents of our lands and accommodate the need for Indigenous education and community greeting. Explore the transformation of the Franklin Library into Haŋyétu Wówapi Thípi (Night Library) an event to inspire the community through Indigenous language and stories.
Marlena Myles is a Spirit Lake Dakota/Mohegan/Muscokee Creek artist. She has exhibited at the Sioux Indian Museum, the Heritage Center on the Pine Ridge reservation, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and more. Marlena uses her art help the public understand the significance of Native oral traditions and history.
Tamara Aupaumut is a multidisciplinary artist whose work articulates explorations of life and death, survival and perseverance, creation and destruction. Her art has recently been featured at Two Rivers Gallery and in the Bring Her Home: Stolen Daughters Of Turtle Island exhibition. As an Art Director her work can be seen in the award-winning short film 100,000 Miles a Second.
Elsa Hoover is a designer and mapmaker who focuses on collaborative practices to communicate Indigenous work across disciplines, territories, and time. Based in Minneapolis, Elsa is an architectural designer at DeVetter Design Group and an editorial fellow with the Avery Review. She studies Anishinaabemowin and works to find good roles as a mixed, queer, urban Anishinaabe person.
Dawí (Huhá Máza) was born in North Georgia in 1986, and moved to Minneapolis in 2012 where he started studying Dakhóta language for his career, he is a lineal descendant of the Bdewákhaŋthuŋ via the Santee Sioux tribe of Nebraska. He currently teaches Dakhóta at Augsburg Fairview Academy, and at the Minneapolis American Indian Center and is an editor/technician for Dakhóta iápi Okhódakichiye.
James D. Autio is a poet and visual artist in Minneapolis. James’ poems have appeared widely in literary journals and anthologies. As an artist, James works in many various media: charcoal drawing on grocery bags, acrylic painting, woodblock printing, digital photography and video, and traditional indigenous arts. James is an enrolled member of the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe.
Jess Grams is a Twin Cities based multimedia journalist and community organizer. As a performer, director, and producer Jess has worked on social justice centered film and theater projects for 15 years. She is currently shooting Minnesota Next, a docu-series that explores the spectrum of displacement marginalized peoples experience across the state. Jess was raised in rural Minnesota, and currently resides in Mahtomedi with her partner, two children, and two cats, Mimi and Musetta.
Andrea Fairbanks – This ikwe is a mother. She is mom before anything. She is a dancer, mediocre singer, self-proclaimed comedian & daydreamer. She is also an educator, especially in Ojibwe language and Native studies. She goes by Bagwajikwe in ceremony & at work. Otherwise people call her Andrea. She is a real live Native American & is available for Thanksgiving dinners & other events to be the token Indian.
Hope Flanagan – My English name is Hope Flanagan, my Ojibwe name is Noodinesiikwe–Little Wind Woman. I am from the Turtle clan at Tonawanda Reservation. Throughout my life I have sought out plants for food, medicine and utility for members of the Minneapolis American Indian Community. This will be my 10th summer working at Dream of Wild Health teaching young Native people about plants. I also taught in an Ojibwe immersion classroom for 10 years. Since I was a teenager, I have had an elder woman as my teacher in working with plants. I have been working/teaching in the Minneapolis native community since the 70’s, at Division of Indian Work, The Minneapolis American Indian Center, Minneapolis Public Schools–Anishinabe Academy, Wicoie Nandagikendan and at Dream of Wild Health.
Twin Cities Native Lacrosse will be presenting a lacrosse demonstration outside of the Franklin Library. John Hunter founded Twin Cities Native Lacrosse in 2014 to promote exercise and a healthy way-of-life by engaging Native American youth and families in traditional Dakota/Ojibwe style-lacrosse and modern-style lacrosse along with instilling cultural values and knowledge. Join us as TCNL shows us how Indigenous people traditionally prepared for battle.
Team Credits: Larry Waukau, Allison Waukau, Becky Wolf, Elizabeth Cole, Amy McNally, PJ Maracle, Hennepin County and Franklin Library staff and volunteers, Steven Slow Bear, Agleska Cohen-Rencountre, Marcie Rendon and Kai Pyle.
Photography on display by Nedahness Greene.