Dakota Mace

Dakota Mace (Diné) is an interdisciplinary artist whose work focuses on translating the language of Diné history and beliefs. Mace received her M.A. and MFA degrees in Photography and Textile Design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA in Photography from the Institute of American Indian Arts. As a Diné (Navajo) artist, her work draws from the history of her Diné heritage, exploring the themes of family lineage, community, and identity. In addition, her work pushes the viewer’s understanding of Diné culture through alternative photography techniques, weaving, beadwork, and papermaking.

She has also worked with numerous institutions and programs to develop dialogue on the issues of cultural appropriation and the importance of Indigenous design work. She is currently a grad advisor in painting and drawing at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the photographer for the Helen Louise Allen Textile Center and the Center of Design and Material Culture.

Her work as an artist and scholar has been exhibited nationally and internationally at various conferences, collectives, museums, and galleries, including: the Textile Society of America, Weave a Real Peace, Indigenous Photograph, The 400 Year Project, the Wright Art Museum, Contemporary Arts Center, the Kemper Museum of Art, and the Wallach Art Gallery.

Tahila Mintz

Tahila Mintz works across multiple platforms to amplify the voices of Indigenous people and the natural world. She is an Indigenous Yoeme and Jewish woman who focuses on ancestral relationships, gender equilibrium, contemporary Indigenous issues, and recuperating knowledge that has been unraveled by colonialism. She is a Water Protector and a Land Guardian whose home is in her Yoeme community in Sonora and in the Haudenosaunee territory of upstate, New York. She has been photographing for more than 20 years, in over 40 countries, and received her MFA from the University of Texas. She is a photographer, film maker, virtual reality technologist, performance artist and the founding executive director of OJI:SDA’ Sustainable Indigenous Futures. Her organization creates an ancestral knowledge land-based curriculum for K-12 students, runs a summer camp for Indigenous youth, provides disaster relief, as well as other models of community support.

The 400 Years Project

The 400 Years Project is a photography collective looking at the evolution of Native American identity, rights, and representation. We provide opportunities to Native storytellers across the Americas and are creating a groundbreaking pictorial collection of Native America. The 400 Years Project commissions original photo stories and texts, licenses established work, produces special projects, and maintains a digital Library of Native American Photographers from the mid-1800s to the present. Using the Mayflower’s 400-year anniversary as a jumping off point, we provide a narrative of Native empowerment while recognizing the devastating effects of colonization.

Photoville

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