The Newberry Library’s exhibit “Native Pop!,” which premiered March 20, explores how Indigenous people have shaped popular culture.
The exhibit draws from the Newberry’s various Indigenous studies collections, which include archival materials like books, photographs, manuscripts, artwork and prints.
In the last decade, the Newberry Library has shifted from collecting historical Indigenous materials to collecting more contemporary material by Indigenous creators.
Will Hansen, co-curator of “Native Pop!” and vice president for collections and library services and curator of Americana at the Newberry, was inspired by the library’s new collections of contemporary materials and proposed the exhibit in 2021.
“When you’re collecting more historical material, there’s an imbalance of white creators talking about and sharing information about Native people, and fewer Indigenous creators actually creating material that makes its way into a repository like this,” Hansen said. “We’re trying to correct that imbalance a little bit through this.”
Independent artist and citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, River Kerstetter, who was brought on by The Newberry as a co-curator about three years ago, said the show spans over 400 years and showcases a variety of mediums from beaded books and polaroids to video games and comic books. It was important for the exhibition to explore the spectrum of art Native people engage in from traditional cultural practices to contemporary forms, she said.
“I just want people to recognize that Native people have always been here, and then we are still here, and we make up part of the fabric of American culture and pop culture in general,” Kerstetter said.
“Native Pop!” exhibits items by Indigenous creators with at least 23 different tribal affiliations, which span mostly across North America, Hansen said.
While deciding which items and works would be included in the exhibit, four themes emerged: kinship, sovereignty, Indigenous ways of knowing and the exploration of time, he said.
These themes are important when thinking about how Indigenous people have engaged in their own culture and in broader popular culture, according to Kerstetter.
Vince Firpo, vice president for public engagement at the Newberry, said the library is also running programming centered around pop culture to go along with the exhibit.
The Newberry will hold a screening of “Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope” in the Navajo language and an Indigenous Zine Fest.
Hansen said the major goal of the exhibition is to represent Indigenous people as vital, active presences in the world today and not relics of the past.
“The oppression that Native people have experienced is real and sort of inflects [sic] everything they do,” Hansen said. “But (Indigenous people) also have fun and experience the joy of being a part of their culture.”
The exhibit will be open to the public until July 19 at Trienens Galleries in the Newberry.
Email: [email protected]
Related Stories:
— Block Museum hosts webinar on artwork connected to One Book One Northwestern
— Block exhibition Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/Chicagoland highlights Indigenous artists
