The Block Museum of Art is in the midst of researching and planning a 2025 exhibition with the working title Woven Being: Indigenous Art in Chicagoland. The exhibition planning process has centered Indigenous methodologies that prioritize collaboration, reciprocity, and sustained dialogue. This includes planning by a curatorial team including; Jordan Poorman Cocker ([Gáuigú (Kiowa)), Terra Foundation Guest […]
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How can funding models and grant-writing processes be more equitable and inclusive? At The Block, collaborators Kate Hadley Toftness and Lois Taylor Biggs (Cherokee Nation and White Earth Ojibwe) are challenging traditional approaches to fundraising with practices informed by Indigenous practices of collaboration, reciprocity, and sustained dialogue. In the below essay, originally published on the American […]
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The Block is currently forming the exhibition Woven Being: Indigenous Art in Chicagoland (working title) through Indigenous curatorial methodologies that prioritize collaboration, reciprocity, and sustained dialogue with an expanding, intergenerational community of Indigenous knowledge sharers and non-Indigenous allies. The Block’s Lois Biggs, (Cherokee Nation and White Earth Ojibwe) Terra Foundation Curatorial Research Fellow, shares a personal account […]
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The city of ‘Tvlv’hasse (“Old town”) / Tvlse-Locvpokv / Tvlse (also known as Tulsa) is located at the intersections of the Muscogee Nation, Cherokee Nation and Osage Nation reservations. Tvlse and the greater land base of Indian Territory have served as a place of convergence and gathering for Indigenous Nations since time immemorial. This location […]
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Throughout 2020-21 The Block Museum is reflecting on artworks from the collection that explore ideas of excess, consumption, and the environment, and offer an interdisciplinary perspective on the climate crisis. Our project is inspired by The Story of More by Hope Jahren, Northwestern University’s 2021-2022 One Book One Northwestern (OBON) selection. In this online talk, Lois Taylor Biggs, […]
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The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is the recipient of a $105,000 grant from the Terra Foundation of American Art in support of research and development for an exhibition that approaches the art history of the Chicago region from Indigenous perspectives. Tentatively titled Indigenous Chicago: Confluence, Rupture, Flow, the exhibition will take place […]
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On November 29, 2017, the Block Museum was honored to host a special conversation with four contemporary Native artists. Each of the women on the panel works within a collaborative artistic practice that unites artists, community, and audience. From to participatory dance and collective narratives, to asynchronous poetry and public interventions these artists upend the notion […]
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