A major new exhibition, “Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation,” has opened at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), marking the museum’s first major Native American exhibition in over three decades. The show features 90 works by more than 60 artists from the Great Lakes region of the U.S. and Canada, including a strong contingent of Minnesota-based painters, sculptors, designers, and filmmakers. Curated in collaboration with a panel of Anishinaabe artists—including Duluth-based painter and filmmaker Jonathan Thunder, Kelly Church, Jason Quigno, Monica Rickert-Bolter, and Jodi Webster—the exhibition spans painting, beadwork, fashion, film, and sculpture. Signage is translated into Anishinaabemowin, and QR codes offer language learning. The curators deliberately chose not to begin with historical works, asserting that Native American artists should not be required to provide a historical preamble.
This exhibition matters because it centers contemporary Indigenous voices and challenges the museum’s historical tendency to present Native art through an ethnographic or historical lens. By prioritizing living artists and modern practices—such as Maggie Thompson’s COVID-era piece “On Loving” (2022–23) and Delina White’s Anishinaabe couture—the DIA is actively working to decolonize its programming and reflect the vitality of Anishinaabe creativity today. The show’s collaborative curation and language inclusion set a new standard for how institutions can respectfully and meaningfully engage with Native communities.