‘Seeds of Culture’ Exhibit Illuminates Lives of Indigenous Women

Standing side by side in the all-white Union Art Gallery with arms outstretched across each other’s backs, two women study one of the photographs dedicated to Native American women and voices through contemporary portraiture. The large, framed photo is surrounded by lights that engulf the woman in the picture. She is standing on big rocks next to a body of water. The woman in the photo is Audra Two Thunders, and she is staring back at the portrait of herself alongside her daughter Wassegahming.

Advocacy for Indigenous women and culture is a common practice in the Two Thunders family, who attended the Seeds of Culture exhibition by Matika Wilbur on November 16 at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Audra is known for serving on many different committees in her community. She is chairwoman of the Milwaukee Indian Education board and a coordinator for the Indian Community School. She reinforces language and culture at ICS by bringing in various cultural guests to help support the school and its students, who also attended the exhibit.

“Matika and her assistant reached out to me to be a part of it,” said Audra. “They just heard about the work I do in the community. How I support the education of our youth, our culture and our language.”

Matika Wilbur is a Swinomish and Tulalip Indigenous photographer from Washington who created the Seeds of Culture: The Portraits and Voices of Native American Women exhibition.

The exhibition showcased 28 portrait photographs of Indigenous women. It’s based on Wilbur’s wide array of contemporary collections that focus on the celebration of Indigenous women and sisterhood, which she says gives her the strength to accomplish her artistic work and advocacy. Wilbur’s work features land-based identities and pedagogies as they relate to the modern day realities of Indigenous women.

“It’s so rare to see Native representation in spaces like this,” said Wassegahming Two Thunders. “For Natives to be represented and it being women, it’s really meaningful to me.”

Wassegahming is an education major in her junior year at UWM who is aspiring to become an Ojibwe language teacher. On campus she serves as the vice president of the American Indian Student Association (AISA).

The exhibition themes challenge stereotypes and misrepresentation of Indigenous people. The contemporary imagery focuses on ancestral history and preservation of culture.

“The general sentiment is for people to know and recognize that Native America is not a monolith,” said Wilbur. “and, that Native women are strong and resilient and are doing work in their communities to ensure that their babies can live happy, healthy and strong lives.”

The exhibition is based on recent photographs from Wilbur’s large collection of stories and interviews. The images are derived from her experiences traveling around the country for Project 562, a body of work that Wilbur has dedicated to traveling to over 500 federally recognized sovereign nations and Indigenous communities throughout the United States. That number is constantly shifting and is now up to 574 as of 2022, which Matika said is due to the complicated and slow recognition pace on the federal government’s part.

“I’m looking at these pictures and I’m looking at myself, and I don’t get to have those chances very often,” said Mark Denning, an adjunct lecturer for the School of Continuing Education at UWM specializing in American Indian History and Culture. Denning is an enrolled member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and descended from six other Indigenous sovereign nations.

Barbara Miner is a photography & imaging lecturer currently teaching a social documentary class at UWM. Miner said that the exhibit displays a clear message of the strength and power of Indigenous people.

The opening reception of the Seeds of Culture exhibition was held at the Union Art Gallery and the Union Ballroom at UWM on November 16. However, the show will run until December 15. It included photography and portraiture along with video and audio storytelling dedicated to the experiences of Indigenous women. The programmed event was opened by a group performance of eight Indian Community School students who are members of the dance and singing group Teyukhilihwakhwá·seh̲e̲ɂ̲ (They’re singing for us). The students performed friendship songs and social dances which was followed by a keynote lecture and book signing of the recently published Project 562.

According to members of the Union Art Gallery who helped organize the event, the exhibition helped them grow and learn more about the gallery, which was recently completed.

“This is a brand new space,” said Haley Steines, the Union Art Gallery manager and curator. “It was completed about a month ago now. This is the first professional artist show that we’ve had in about two years, so for us it’s a really big deal to get back to our normal schedule of shows because we didn’t have a space for about a year and a half.”

Steines is a UWM student in her final year of a coordinated Masters Degree in Art History and Library and Information Sciences.

The co-sponsors of Seeds of Culture include the Union Art Gallery, Sociocultural Programming, UWM Women’s Resource Center, Cultures and Communities, and the Electa Quinney Institute for American Indian Education.