This installation is the result of collaboration between two Native American women artists. In it, our distinct artistic practices and backgrounds are combined in an alignment that reflects our friendship. Together, we created a work based on differences and similarities of identity and place. As it is within many Native American communities, we work together and sometimes side-by-side. Here, we are two Nations in one art department and university, and we have formed together a safe place in which we thrive.
What makes a safe place? For us, it’s the common elements of our tribal beliefs, the philosophies of our Nations, and general “Indn” stuff. As two friends living miles from our own communities and “homes,” we decided to build on common ideas of identity and culture for this exhibition.
—C. Maxx Stevens, Associate Professor, Foundations
—Melanie Yazzie, Professor, Printmaking