Working across different media, including performance, sculpture, painting, and photography, Jana Harper explores how the burdens of history can be transformed through gestures of love and empathy. Much of her practice reflects on the Mackinac Bands of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians, of which she is a member. The works on view in this gallery are part of a long-term, multifaceted project rooted in historical research and the Mackinac Bands’ fifty year quest for federal recognition by the US government.
Song for the Water follows the Anishinaabe peoples’ main migration routes through the Great Lakes. Harper handstitched glass seed beads from her late mother’s collection onto the bottom of each silk panel. How Indian Are You? is a visual representation of her maternal family tree, while Ancestor Bulletin is an archive of Harper’s research over the last ten years. Finally, Memorial for Mackinac features nearly two thousand names from a census taken between 1870 and 1908 of the four Michigan tribes that consider Mackinac Island sacred.
Listen to the artist discuss these works of art.
