Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak / Chicagoland

Zhegagoynak, the place now known as Chicagoland, is a vital center for Indigenous art, past and present. This winter, The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University will celebrate the region’s Indigenous creativity with a major exhibition, Woven Being: Art for Zhegagoynak/ Chicagoland (January 25–July 13, 2025).

Through the collaboration of four artists with connections to Zhegagoynak—Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe/European descent), Kelly Church (Match-E-Be-Nash-She-Wish Tribe of Pottawatomi/Ottawa), Nora Moore Lloyd (Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe), and Jason Wesaw (Pokagon Band of Potawatomi) —Woven Being explores confluences that continue to shape Indigenous creative practices in the region and beyond.

Chicagoland is the traditional homeland of the people of the Council of Three Fires— the Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Odawa—as well as the Menominee, Miami, Ho-Chunk, Sac, Fox, Kickapoo, and Illinois nations. It has been a longstanding cultural and economic hub for Indigenous peoples and continues to be today. People from many Indigenous nations call the region home, and the city of Chicago has the third-largest urban Indigenous population in the United States. The richness of Indigenous experiences and contributions are often excluded from Chicago’s art histories. Woven Being counters this by centering the ideas, choices, and voices of Indigenous artists. 

“The Block was interested in exploring the question: ‘How does one’s understanding of Chicago change when seen through Indigenous perspectives?’” said Jordan Poorman Cocker (Kiowa), Terra Foundation guest co-curator of the exhibition. “This exhibition helps shift views about the place Chicagoans call home by revealing Indigenous stories that have been erased or omitted from mainstream narratives.”

More than five years in the planning, Woven Being is the result of an ongoing dialogue among Carlson, Church, Lloyd, Wesaw, exhibition curators, and The Block Museum staff. The exhibition presents more than 80 artworks by 33 artists active from the mid-20th century to today and includes multiple newly commissioned works. “Just as a black ash basket is given form through the interweaving of many splints, Woven Being was developed through an in-depth collaboration with and between these artists and The Block’s project team,” says Cocker.

This artist-centered approach has resulted in a distinctive exhibition where the artists have shaped a context for their work amid works by other artists of their choosing.  Together, the artworks highlight the shared aesthetics, materials, values, and communities of the artists. Themes of land and waterways, kinship with plants and animals and Indigenous concepts of time likewise connect the exhibition’s artworks.

In addition to the collaborating artists, exhibited artists include Josef Albers, Rick Bartow, Frank Big Bear, Roy Boney, Avis Charley, Woodrow Wilson Crumbo, Nancy Fisher Cyrette,  Jim Denomie, Jeffrey Gibson, Teri Greeves, Denise Lajimodiere, Mark LaRoque, Courtney M. Leonard, Agnes Martin, Wanesia Misquadace, George Morrison, Barnett Newman, Daphne Odjig, Virgil Ortiz, Chris Pappan, Cherish Parrish, John Pigeon, Jason Quigno, Monica Rickert-Bolter, Sharon Skolnick, Skye Tafoya, Lisa Telford, Joe Yazzie and Debra Yepa-Pappan.

Opening celebration: Saturday, February 1, 2pm [RSVP]

Woven Being is part of the Terra Foundation’s citywide Art Design Chicago, Lead support is generously provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art. Major support is provided by the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, The Joyce Foundation and by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. Additional  support is provided by the Sandra L. Riggs Publication Fund and the Alumnae of Northwestern University.

About The Block 
Free and open to all, The Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is an engine that drives questioning, experimentation and collaboration across fields of study, with visual arts at the center. The Block does this by activating art’s power as a form of insight, research and knowledge creation that makes human experience visible and material. Fueled by diverse perspectives and ways of knowing, The Block creates shared encounters with art and with one another to deepen understandings of the world and our place within it.