The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is honored to be amongst the 50 recipients of funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of its Fall 2023 grant awardees. The $100,000 grant will support The Block’s 2025 exhibition Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/ Chicagoland, that will explore the Indigenous history and creative practices of the Chicagoland region through the perspectives of four collaborating artists: Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe), Kelly Church (Match-E-Be-Nash-E-Wish Band of Pottawatomi), Nora Moore Lloyd (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa), and Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi).  

“As socio-political tensions, cultural inequities, and environmental crises persist, it is imperative that arts organizations continue to cultivate the expressive capacities of artists,” notes Joel Wachs, President of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in a news release from the organization. “By providing artists with financial, material and intellectual resources, as well as public platforms and engaged audiences, these organizations support the development of works that can offer new entry points to stalemated conversations.” 

Woven Being is a part of the Terra Foundation for American Art’s citywide collaborative project Art Design Chicago, a yearlong engagement with the city’s creative communities and artistic heritage. Funding for the exhibition was also provided by the Terra Foundation. The Block previously received funding from The Andy Warhol Foundation in 2021 and 2019 for its exhibition A Site of Struggle: American Art Against Anti-Black Violence.  

The Block is one of 50 institutions awarded across the US and Mexico, with recipients in 20 US states and one in Mexico City. The foundation’s support for the round of grants totals over $4 million.  

Janet Dees, The Block’s Steven and Lisa Munster Tananbaum Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art, said Woven Being’s artist-centric approach aligns with the Warhol Foundation’s values. 

“Woven Being centers the voices of artists and supports their agency to shape the context in which their work is viewed and interpreted,” she said. 

Woven Being development is led by a collaborative team including Dees; Jordan Poorman Cocker ([Gáuigú (Kiowa)), Terra Foundation Guest Co-Curator); Kathleen Bickford Berzock (Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs); Dan Silverstein (Associate Director of Collections and Exhibition Management); and Erin Northington (Susan and Stephen Wilson Associate Director, Campus and Community Education and Engagement). Through the planning process, Block curators and fundraisers are engaged in rethinking and reshaping established museum practices to align with Indigenous methodologies that prioritize collaboration and reciprocity.