The Peabody has recently acquired several examples of Indigenous art, with the goal of enriching our education collection. Raven Makes Gallery is an art gallery based in Sisters, Oregon, dedicated seeking to “work directly with artists to bring American Indian, or Native American, First Nations and Alaska Native art to the unique setting of Central Oregon and cultivate a deeper awareness about fine artists and their communities.”
The Gallery features original pieces made primarily by Indigenous artists from North America, but also has pieces that come from Indigenous people all over the world. It’s an amazing gallery and their website is definitely worth poking around for those who are interested.
Native American Art Gallery – Raven Makes Gallery
Super cool stuff, right? Here’s where we come in. This year the gallery presented “The Homeland Collection, year three.” It was a collection of 88 antique maps (think like, nineteenth century settler maps) that served as a canvas for 22 Indigenous artists from all over the world to incorporate into their own work. The Peabody purchased two of these pieces!
The Homelands Collection, 3rd Ed, Raven Makes Gallery Exhibit– Homelands Collection
The maps are a powerful visual representation of re-indigenization/decolonization in artwork. Maps are interesting to look at, but there are questions: what is the reason they are made, who are they made for, who are they made by? Maps like those in the Raven Makes Gallery collection may have been designed with settlers and land prospectors in mind. The maps were used to impose colonizer culture and world views on Indigenous people. The illustrated borders would have had little to no input by Native communities, on land that they were the stewards of to begin with. So, this project has been an opportunity to shift the narrative. Turning tools of colonization into a representation of decolonization. Flipping it on its head! A physical reminder that Native people have been here for at least tens of thousands of years before these maps were “needed.”
The Peabody has a large collection of items from Alaska and the Southwest, so these two pieces made the most sense to grab. We are excited to have the opportunity to support Native artists and strengthen our education collection! We hope to use these to create interesting conversations about the creation and usage of maps in our history!
The first is Isuqwiq Pisuraa (Hunting Seals) II by Heather Johnston (Alutiiq). The map is an 1827 depiction of south-western Alaska by Philippe Vandermaelen, showing the routes of artic explorers in the late 1700s.
The second piece is Kachinas’ Territory by Wilmer Kay (Hopi). The map is an 1862 depiction of the Southwest made during the Civil War by A.J. Johnson.
The Peabody 