Acknowledgment
2024
Archival inkjet prints
31 portraits with Land and Water Acknowledgment text from Indian Community School
23x6’
Acknowledgment is a permanent public art installation commissioned by the Wisconsin Center District for the Baird Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. I collaborated with Indian Community School to create a set of photographs intended to address visitors to the center, many of whom will be visiting from elsewhere. The portraits of current students, alumni, faculty, staff and families are paired with the written Land and Water Acknowledgment developed by the school. I was motivated by the idea of introducing visitors to people who live in the Milwaukee community, and to invite them to think more deeply about the land they’re standing on, and those who came before us.
Indian Community School is a private, faith-based school in Franklin, Wisconsin, which serves more than 350 students in grades 4K-8, and who represent more than 40 tribal Nations. Over the course of four months, I photographed 78 members of the school community. From those portraits, 31 are included in the installation.
Before making any of the portraits, I photographed on the beautiful, 170 acre grounds of Indian Community School. These photographs of land, sky and natural texture became sources for digital color samples, which became the color backdrops for the portraits. It was important to me that the land was represented within every portrait. The color also contributed to the contemporary look of the portraits, reinforcing the idea that these are portraits of people living in our community today.
An artist book was created for the school community, containing all 78 portraits made for the project, photographs of the land, a newly commissioned poem, Anishinaabe-aking: Faces of Kinship, by Native poet Kimberly M. Blaeser and the school’s Land and Water Acknowledgment. Copies were printed for all the students, faculty and staff of Indian Community School.
Open edition
First printing: 550 copies
8x8”
46 pages
Perfect bound
Printed by Magcloud
More than a third of the project commission was directed back towards project participants and the school community. This took a variety of forms, including copies of an artist’s book for all students, faculty and staff; individual prints for project participants; gift certificates to the Native-owned Birchbark Books in Minneapolis; donations of contemporary native artist monographs to the school library; and honoraria for visits to the school by artist Dakota Mace and poet Kimberly M. Blaeser.
My work with the school would not have been possible without the help of Siobhan Marks and Dr. Mark Powless. I am so grateful for their guidance and support.
Indian Community School Land and Water Acknowledgment
We first acknowledge the land and the water that has become home to Indian Community School. We acknowledge all of the caretakers of this land:
Those who were removed or erased from their traditional homelands here; including the Mesquaki, Sauk and Fox, Dakota Oyáte, Ioway, Miami, Kickapoo and Mascouten; and the Nations whose names we will never know;
Those who most recently lived here as a nation: the Bodwe’wadmi (Keepers of the Fire), who reside here as part of the Three Fires Confederacy and are known today as the Potawatomi;
Those whose creation stories took place in neighboring lands and who have called this territory “home” since time immemorial: the Ho-Chungra (People of the Sacred Voice), today known as the Ho-Chunk and the Omāēqnomenēwak (People of the Wild Rice), known today as the Menominee;
The most recent caretakers, the students, teachers, staff and board of the Indian Community School.
We also acknowledge those who represent the Tribal Nations of what is now Wisconsin:
Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Forest County Potawatomi, Ho-Chunk Nation,Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin, Oneida Nation, Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Sokaogon Chippewa Community - Mole Lake Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, Saint Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin, Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians, Brothertown Indian Nation and all of the Tribal Nations outside of Wisconsin’s borders, whose tribal members and descendants are represented by our students, teachers, staff and community.
And we acknowledge the faces of the ancestors yet to come.