Since opening in January 2025, Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland at The Block Museum of Art has inspired tours, talks, classes, workshops, and performances. Now, through the work of Teagan Harris (Cherokee Nation), 2024-25 Terra Foundation Engagement Fellow, Woven Being includes a new kind of interpretive experience: a curated Spotify playlist that serves as a sonic reflection on the exhibition.
Rather than replicate the format of an audio guide or didactic label, Harris’s musical playlist and its accompanying text offer a constellation of musical connections—relationships between sound and memory, between artists and ancestors, and between traditional and contemporary Indigenous expression.
“I came to the exhibition knowing I wanted to do something with sound,” Harris explained in an interview. “I’ve always loved music, and I’m always searching for Indigenous artists across genres. I thought, ‘What would it mean to curate an audio exhibition experience for people seeking a different kind of experience in the gallery?’”
The result is an hour-long playlist accompanied by poetic liner notes that “flow like a reflection, not a manual.” The notes, accompanying each of the 15 selected songs, create both context and atmosphere. Each new track opens a window into shared themes between the music and the art on view: memory, resistance, cultural continuity, and personal expression.
What would it mean to curate an audio exhibition experience for people seeking a different kind of experience in the gallery?
Visitors are invited to listen to the playlist however they wish. Some may follow the tour closely, reading along with each song’s context. Others may simply let the music wash over them as they move through the gallery. “I wanted it to function in both modes,” said Harris. “For those who want a structured narrative, it’s there. For others, it can just be a vibe.”
The playlist begins with songs like Jeremy Dutcher’s “Skicinuwihkuk,” which overlays archival speech in the Maliseet language with operatic vocals, and transitions through pow wow rhythms, hand drum lullabies, and throat singing. As the experience builds, it incorporates hip hop, punk, bluegrass, and even a cover of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass”—all performed by Indigenous musicians.
“The playlist shifts in tone,” Harris noted. “It starts with what people might expect from ‘Indigenous music’—birchbark pounding, rattle songs—and moves into less expected territory. But all of it is Indigenous. It’s all happening at once.”
This dynamic movement mirrors the exhibition’s themes. Just as Woven Being resists a singular narrative or timeline, the playlist offers many points of entry. The music is not a soundtrack to art but a companion—a set of conversations and emotional resonances.
During a live gallery tour Harris led to launch the project, attendees were given a “sonic treasure map” and encouraged to explore at their own pace. With music playing through a speaker, visitors wandered, danced, lingered, and talked. “It turned the gallery into a more communal space,” Harris recalled. “Music changes the energy. It invites conversation.”
In one powerful moment, the playlist juxtaposes Fawn Wood’s hand drum lullaby “Mommy’s Little Guy”—a tender tribute to mothers and children—with Tanya Tagaq’s visceral “Teeth Agape,” which channels rage and maternal protection. Together, the songs hold space for both grief and strength, two themes evoked by Kelly Church’s installation “Honoring Our Children,” which stands in the center of the exhibition. “That pairing was really intentional,” said Harris. “It’s about honoring those feelings simultaneously.”
Ultimately, this sonic tour expands the ways audiences are invited to be present within the exhibition and welcomes visitors to hold space for multiple modes of knowing. For Harris, the playlist is not just an extension of Woven Being—it’s a gift, a gesture of care. “It’s something you can take with you. The art may stay in the gallery, but the music goes with you.”
Ready to listen? Click listen now below, Scan the QR code in the download, or search for “Woven Being Playlist” on Spotify.
