University at Buffalo (UB)
O’nigöëi:yo:h Thinking in Indian
O’nigöëi:yo:h Thinking in Indian, 2022, installation view, UB Art Galleries, Center for the Arts Gallery. Photo: Biff Henrich.
July 14 – October 2, 2022
Kat Brown Akootchook, Erin Lee Antonak, Tracey Anthony, Jay Carrier, Hannah Claus, Dawn Dark Mountain, Patricia Deadman, Elizabeth Doxtater, Katsitsionni Fox, Eric Gansworth, Ronni-Leigh Goeman, Hayden Hayes, Carla Hemlock, Barbara-Helen Hill, Carrie Hill, Dan Hill, Richard W. Hill, Sr., Stanley Hill, Sr., Karen Ann Hoffman, Melanie Hope, Alex Jacobs, Arnold Jacobs, Samantha Jacobs, G. Peter Jemison, Grant Jonathan, Peter Jones, Brandon Lazore, Ange Loft, Linley Logan, Faye Lone, George Longfish, Oren Lyons, Laticia McNaughton, Alan Michelson, Ann Mitchell, Shelley Niro, Roger Cook Parish, Erwin Printup, Jr., Erwin Printup, Sr., Luanne Redeye, Jolene Rickard, Natasha Smoke Santiago, Diane Schenandoah, Santee Smith, Samuel Thomas, Brooke Vandewalker, Marie Watt, and Waylon Wilson.
O’nigöëi:yo:h Thinking in Indian is an exhibition of Hodinöhsö:ni’ artists celebrating 2022 as the 50th year of Indigenous Studies at the University at Buffalo.
At a time when the field of Native American and Indigenous Studies and Indigenous activism has blossomed, we look back and forward to the seeding of intellectual traditions, seizing of territorial imaginings through meaningful actions, and the threading of our grounded relationality as we come together with a good mind. Works by almost 50 artists from the Hodinöhsö:ni’ Confederacy – Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora–will be featured across both UB Art Galleries spaces. Visions of our artists will interconnect ideas through their imagery and highlighting of collective goals across generations and nations. The exhibition will include works created from a wide rangevof media – digital data, black ash, moose hair, glass beads, paint, and more. Each artwork is a demonstration of intergenerational knowledge with a 21st-century perspective.
The title of the exhibition is inspired by one of the founders of Native American Studies at the University at Buffalo, Dr. John Mohawk “Sotsisowah” (Seneca). Thinking in Indian A John Mohawk Reader is an Indigenous analysis of modern existence touching upon issues ranging from sovereignty to the coalescence of human wisdom. O’nigöëi:yo:h Thinking in Indian presents a multi-generational perspective, centering the artist’s voices around questions of land and gender, visual language and action, and imagining Hodinöhsö:ni’ futures.
O’nigöëi:yo:h Thinking in Indian speaks of Hodinöhsö:ni’ foundations of seeding, seizing territorial imaginings, and threading our relationships between the human and non-human in the first person with the intention to provoke and inspire as it reframes present discourses.
This exhibition is organized by UB Art Galleries with Margaret Jacobs (Akwesasne Mohawk), curatorial consultant, and guided by an advisory committee comprised of Dr. Mishuana Goeman (Tonawanda Band of Seneca), Professor of Gender Studies and American Indian Studies Interdepartmental Program, UCLA; Dr. Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora), Professor of theHistory of Art and Visual Studies and former Director of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program at Cornell University; Laticia McNaughton (Mohawk), Ph.D. candidate in American Studies at the University at Buffalo; and Dr. Gwendolyn Saul, Curator of Ethnography at the New York State Museum. Special thanks to Dr. Theresa McCarthy (Onondaga) Interim Chair and Associate Professor in Indigenous Studies and Associate Dean for Inclusive Excellence at the University of Buffalo.
Thank you to the following institutions for generously lending to the exhibition: Fenimore Art Museum, Cooperstown, NY; Forge Project, Taghkanic, NY; Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY; Iroquois Museum, Howes Cave, NY; K Art, Buffalo, NY; McMaster Musuem of Art, Hamilton, ON; New York State Museum, Albany, NY; and Rockwell Museum, Corning, NY.
Support for the exhibition is provided in part by the Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts with additional support provided by the UB Department of Indigenous Studies. Support for UB Art Galleries is provided by the UB College of Arts and Sciences, the Visual Arts Building Fund, the UB Anderson Gallery Fund, and the Seymour H. Knox Foundation Fine Art Fund.
