Indigenous Art Show

Grant funding has been provided by the Middlesex County Board of County Commissioners through a grant award from the Middlesex County Cultural and Arts Trust Fund. For information on events, go to MiddlesexCountyCulture.com. Made possible by funds from Middlesex County, a partner of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

    “Still Walking in Mocs: Indigenous Identity Beyond the End of the Trail” is an exhibition curated by Rappahannock artist Devon Borkowski through the Bowery Art Collective, dedicated to the historic and ongoing creativity and accomplishment of Indigenous people. The exhibition aims to shift the conversation around Native resilience, focusing on Indigenous life as an evolving, present-day lived experience, rather than a sad story of America’s past. The artists selected exemplify the vast diversity and depth of Indigenous culture within America— showcasing Native history beyond the stereotypes of Hollywood Westerns and cigarette marketing schemes, celebrating a contemporary and culturally connected Native present, and dreaming of a Native future. 

     These themes manifest for some artists through their mediums— utilizing aspects of ancestral art forms like beadwork and gourd painting— as well as through subject. Others use more contemporary techniques in identity focused ways. Each work is as distinctly Native as the hands that made it, and the exhibition seeks to celebrate a variety of perspectives on walking Indigenously through America. This show has a particular interest in highlighting local Indigenous artists, as well as artists from Indigenous communities that have been historically underrepresented in conversations about Native life, such as east coast communities, or “First Contact” tribes. 

      The show dates overlapping with contentious historical remembrance moments like Indigenous People’s Day (formally Columbus Day) highlights a cultural divide that urgently needs to be addressed. Through unequivocally uplifting a thriving depiction of Native culture, the exhibition engages non-native viewers in a conversation about the gaps in their own understanding of American history— because there is no such thing as a complete American history without a full understanding of the original tenders of the land. Through inviting the viewer into a space that wholly centers the Indigenous point of view, it addresses the hunger that many Americans have to better understand the Indigenous story. The subtitle of the show points to the James Earle sculpture End of The Trail— a sympathetic portrayal of Native suffering done by a white artist, that has become central iconography in how Natives appear in the average American imagination. This show invites the viewer to imagine beyond that. To dream alongside Indigenous people whose ancestors did not stop at the End of the Trail, but instead dismounted their tired horses and carried on in their Moccasins, forging a continuous and increasingly bright future for the generations to come.

Host or Publisher Bowery Art Collective Foundation