Dyani White Hawk and Caroline Kent in Conversation

Join artists Dyani White Hawk and Caroline Kent for a conversation on abstraction, feminism, and their overlapping artistic interests and influences. This program is co-presented with the Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) as the Fall 2025 Indigenous Feminisms keynote. Indigenous feminisms theorizes from and with Indigeneity to understand the historic formation and contemporary structures of our present world. The evening will be introduced by Megan Baker, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern.

In her multidisciplinary practice, Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) brings together Lakota artistic traditions with Minimalist, and Color Field artistic influences. Working across painting, sculpture, and print, Dyani White Hawk emphasizes how color, shape, pattern, and material can carry meaning. Her recent series They Gifted (Night) and They Gifted (Day) exemplify these ideas and will be on view in The Living Room at The Block from November 12 to December 14, 2025.

Caroline Kent uses abstraction to explore the possibilities and limits of language. Her richly layered compositions speculate on communication and miscommunication, drawing attention to how meaning can shift across context and culture.

Together, White Hawk and Kent will discuss their artistic influences, conceptual frameworks, and the evolving role of abstraction as a space for cultural reflection, resistance, and reimagination.

Participation level – light, audience members can choose to participate in the Q&A at the close of the program.

Programs are open to all, on a first-come first-served basis. RSVPs are not required, but are appreciated.

The Living Room is a drop-in space at The Block Museum that invites students and other visitors to gather, reflect, and connect with one artwork in the museum’s collection, rotating each month. The Living Room is supported by the Alsdorf Gallery Endowment.

Dyani White Hawk (Sičáŋǧu Lakota) is a multidisciplinary artist based in Minneapolis. White Hawk was featured in the 2022 Whitney Biennial and the recent solo exhibition Speaking to Relatives at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver and Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art. She has received awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, Creative Capital, Anonymous Was a Woman, Joan Mitchell Foundation and McKnight Foundation. Her work can be found within collections such as the Guggenheim, Brooklyn Museum, Hirshhorn Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MoMA, NY, Walker Art Center, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. Dyani White Hawk photograph © John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation—used with permission.

Caroline Kent is a Chicago-based visual artist. Kent speculates in both the potential and the limitations of language, and ultimately questions the modernist canon of abstraction. She earned an MFA at the University of Minnesota. She has exhibited widely at sites including the Walker Art Center, The Flag Art Foundation, the DePaul Art Museum, the California African American Museum, and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Kent is a 2025 USA Fellow and received the 2025 Aspen Arts Prize for innovation in abstraction. She has received grants from The Pollock Krasner Foundation, The McKnight Foundation, and The Jerome Foundation. Kent is Assistant Professor of Art, Theory and Practice, at Northwestern University.

Megan Baker (Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma) is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Northwestern. She is a sociocultural anthropologist and tribal historian specializing in Oklahoma Choctaw history and Indigenous Southeastern material culture. Her research and teaching broadly considers the intersections of Indigenous sovereignty, economy, and history of anthropology in North America. While completing her PhD, Megan worked as a Cultural Research Associate for the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma’s Historic Preservation department. There, she worked on projects involving community-engaged research, exhibition curation, collections research, archival legal research, public history, NAGPRA, and revitalizing traditional arts like textiles and rivercane basketry. She is also a textile artist part of the Choctaw Textile Group.

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