• Alec Soth

• Andy Baird

• Andy DuCett

• Anissa Cavazos

• Autumn Cavender-Wilson

• Awanigiizhik Bruce

• Chotsani Elaine Dean

• Christopher E. Harrison

• Christopheraaron Deanes

• Cole Redhorse Taylor

• Dougie Padilla

• Douglas Ewart

• Emma Beatrez

• Frank Buffalo Hyde

• Harriet Bart

• Hend Al-Mansour

• Jenny Schmid

• Jesse Ferdinand

• Julie Buffalohead

• Kim Benson

• Lamar Peterson

• Lela Pierce

• Leslie Barlow

• Luis Fitch

• Mai Tran

• Maiya Lea Hartman

• Maria Cristina Tavera

• Melissa Cooke Benson

• Michael Engebretson

• Michelle Defoe

• Namir Fearce

• Nick Chatfield-Taylor and Dorian Lightbown

• Pamela Gaard

• Peng Wu

• Piotr Szyhalski

• Ricardo Levins Morales

• Rotem Tamir

• Ruthann Godollei

• Steven Premo

• Tamara Aupaumut

• Thomasina Topbear

• Tia Keobounpheng

• Tomas Araya

• Ta-coumba T. Aiken

• Victor Van

• Wing Young Huie

• Wóokiye wiŋ (Katie Jo Bendickson)

Artist Bios and Statements

Bio: I’ve assembled pictures in various ways for many years. I structure meaning, visual rhythms and rhymes in simple compositions. My artistic process is a wandering scavenging improvisation. I draw, paint and copy images using a variety of tools and materials. I often use photography, digital editing and other means to make art. I’ve made artist books, mail art zines and images to share online. I hope my work is evidence of a focused artistic practice.

Anissa Cavazos

Bio: Anissa Cavazos is a multidisciplinary artist from Sebastian, Texas located in the Rio Grande Valley. She earned her BFA from Texas State University in San Marcos, TX and is an MFA candidate at the University of Minnesota. Her own work reflects on the culture and experience of growing up in the RGV, examining cultural resilience, practices, and preservation. Utilizing natural materials such as, nopales, hojas, mesquite, and cotton, Cavazos reprocesses them to create paper, sculptures, and books. With this intentionality she aspires to root her work back home while inviting non-valley natives to share in these experiences. Her creative process stems from Mexican and Tejano folklore, family history, and the layered intersectionality within nepantla.

Statement: This work is the first I've created since returning to Minneapolis after my dad's passing. The background is made up of sewn hojas that reflect a portal. Central within are two transparent photos bridging time, life, and death. The largest of the two shows my tio, my dad's caretaker, standing over my father's casket. The smaller image is myself as a child in my grandmother's backyard with my father. This piece is meant to fade overtime, gradually losing its visualization and returning back into memories.

Awanigiizhik Bruce

Bio: Awanigiizhik Bruce (Mikinaakowajiwininiw) is a Two-Spirit diverse-media artist, community organizer, language/culture teacher, and independent researcher based on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation. Through the preservation and revitalization of material culture and creating across numerous artistic modalities, Awanigiizhik Bruce pushes boundaries by exploring Indigenous contemporisms and futurisms. Their artistic practices are informed by their Nehiyaw-Pwat (Ojibwe, Cree, Metis, and Assiniboine) heritage, personal identity, and nomadic lifestyle. They spend much of the year completing site-specific and collaborative projects around the country, like murals in Minneapolis, St. Paul, and Duluth, MN, Des Moines, IA, and Belcourt, ND.

Statement: Taga ambe giiwe’odaa! Come on, let's go home (by canoe) highlights a familiar experience. Indigenous peoples from this region utilized these great highways (the rivers, lakes, and portaging) to travel. Awanigiizhik made ledger drawings of the birchbark canoe and birchbark wigwam. They fused both of those ledger drawings within a digital art program to depict a larger, cohesive design. Waterfaring gives us time to reflect on our relationships, to our family systems, to our environment, to our sovereignty, and how our ancestors lived and how we learn from them.

Chotsani Elaine Dean

Bio: Chotsani Elaine Dean is an artist and educator, born in Hartford, Ct.

Statement: This poster is a pause for Phillis Wheatley and Scipio Moorhead, both of whom lived in Boston. In 1775, Scipio was sold at an estate auction and was never heard from again. Phillis Wheatley wrote a poem for Scipio, “To S. M., a young African Painter, on seeing his Works.” He was an artist; she praised his work. She, too, was enslaved and an artist. His owners and oppressors, Sarah Moorhead, an art teacher, and Reverend John Moorhead, her husband, kept Scipio in bondage. He was lost to us in 1775, but his name was remembered and spoken during this Wakpa Triennial for a time. Everything is always for a time.

Dougie Padilla

Bio: Dougie Padilla is a self-taught artist/poet/activist/visionary and life-long Minnesotan of Norwegian/Mexican/cowboy roots. He has lived thru a sub-zero winter in an army tent, fought against the war in Vietnam and for civil rights, created thousands of drawings and paintings and poems, farmed with horses, lived in an ashram in India. Among occupations he has counted artist, poet, farmer, single father, soccer coach, psychic, sportswear designer, jade cutter, activist, and hospital orderly. He has studied with swamis and zen masters and dancing rabbis, shamans and sufis and bards, psychics and yogis and archetypal psychologists. His work has been shown and collected nationally and internationally. He has won awards and founded arts organizations and businesses. Married for 39 years he is forever surrounded by a delightful host of family, friends and critters.

Ruthann Godollei

Bio: Ruthann Godollei incorporates social commentary in her work, often including satiric text. Her artwork is in many collections, including KUMU National Art Museum, Estonia; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Brandenburgische Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst, Germany; the Polish National Museum of Art, Poznañ; the Minnesota Museum of American Art, etc.. She was a 2022-'23 McKnight Visual Artist Fellow. A Professor at Macalester College, she was a 2019 Fulbright Canada Research Chair at the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada. She currently has work in Unreadable, Word-Images from the BLMK Museum, at the Rathaushalle, Frankfurt (Oder), Germany and a solo exhibit, Hindsight, at NE Sculpture |Gallery Factory, Mpls..

Tamara Aupaumut

Statement: This image is based on a photograph from 2018. It is of one of my relatives that passed away last year. Maxkweenno loved his people, the Mohican people, and made enormous efforts to help revitalize our language. He had a larger than life personality and was welcoming to all. As we sat around talking at our annual powwow, a Monarch landed on his hand–it was a moment to pause–a moment to appreciate this beautiful life–and the connection we have with all our relations. The background is the river that the Mohican people come from, we are the People of the Waters That Are Never Still, reflecting the river that flows in two directions, the river that flows through us. While we exist with constant movement, may we pause for a moment to remember all that is good. May we continue to show up for one another, for our community, and honor those that shared this beautiful life with us