Dreaming Our Futures: Ojibwe and Ochethi Sakowin Artists and Knowledge Keepers

Edited by Brenda J. Child and Howard Oransky
University of Minnesota Press (2024)
191 pages

Review by Margaret A. MacKichan

Dreaming Our Futures celebrates the work of 29 contemporary Ojibwe and Dakota painters. The paintings—all by artists with connections to the region—reflect changes in the world of Indigenous art over the past 50-plus years. Essays written by scholars and art historians who are often Native themselves help bring that emerging change into focus for the reader. They offer insight into individual artists, but also into the long road to validate Indigenous art that seeks to retain ancestral threads and memories in the closed world of mainstream art critics. Thought-provoking essays add depth to the book. For instance, Brenda J. Child’s essay deals with issues involving public art about Natives, as well as art by them, as it relates specifically to the history of Minnesota. Since statehood, Minnesota has had a tumultuous relationship with tribal entities. Indigenous art is political art, whether intentional or not, and Child’s essay shines a spotlight on contentious issues today linked with growing public awareness and Indigenous rights movements.

The range of art and artists presented is extensive. Included, as one might expect, are Oscar Howe and George Morrison. These are two of the best known early tribal artists from this area to challenge the invisible line created by non-Indian collectors, art aficionados, and marketers who had long perpetuated and rewarded a strict adherence to a preconceived idea of “Indian art.” In the accompanying essays, these and other artists’ strug­gles and triumphs are revealed, as they helped to pave the way for subsequent painters.

The selected art is a rich and diverse collection by artists of varied backgrounds and education. A wide range of figurative, abstract, satirical, and social commentary works are represented. Artworks from earlier sources and periods are revised and remade to be personal, pertinent, and relevant today, including Indigenous 19th century ledger art.

Morrison and Howe incorporate mainstream 20th century movements as a vehicle for Indigenous content. In his painting Searching for Nokomis, the artist Rabbett Before Horses Strickland mimics Bev Doolittle’s style in a lighthearted and humorous piece harkening back to “Where’s Waldo?” Dyani White Hawk’s paint­ings take traditionally geometric women’s art of bead and quill­work into a new world, blasting through scale limitations and peeling away minutiae to reveal the core of color, shape, and movement.

The book’s overwhelming message is one of great respect for both the work and the artist. Each artist is represented by three or more finely printed full-color reproductions of their work, allow­ing a deeper sense of the artist’s vision. Artist statements in both English and their respective Indigenous language further this trend. Biographies of the contributors lend weight and validation that this is serious art by serious artists. Indigenous art is not just seen through the lens of anthropology, and not just relegated to descriptions of disconnected technique and visual aesthetics. No, we are given the opportunity to peer into the individuality of the artist, allowing the sensibilities and experiences of tribal people to shine through.

“Making” for the artist serves many purposes. For today’s Indigenous artists it is a lifeline to reconnect, reinforce, and revive culture. It is a way to come to terms with two worlds, urban and reservation. It is a way to touch the ancestors. Dreaming Our Futures is a beautiful book, a treasure trove of contemporary Indigenous art.

Margaret A. MacKichan is the founding director and an emeritus professor at the Great Plains Art Institute at Sinte Gleska University.