Title: Where Bears Roam

Artist: Jamie R John

Tribal Affiliation: Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians

Year Completed: 2021

Medium: Watercolor on paper, Unframed

Dimensions (HxWxD): 8.5in by 11in

Artist Bio/Statement:

Jamie John is a two-spirit Anishinaabe and Korean-American multi-disciplinary artist and writer living and working on their ancestral homeland of so-called Michigan. They are a dually enrolled tribal citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the United States of America. With very little connection to their Korean heritage and being raised alongside their adopted Mexican/Nahuatl family, much of early life was full of cultural richness and contrasts. Art has been used as a tool to carve out a space for Jamie and others like them despite the impact of colonialism, intergenerational traumas, and gender violence. The viewing ofJamie's work begins with the understanding that we do not live in a post-colonial society and the Indian Wars never ended. Everyday acts of settler colonial violence such as displacement, police brutality, and land desecration, provide a window to the injustices of our ancestors. Intertwining personal narrative along with historical memory and cultural loss allows the work to speak to what it means to be Indigenous, what it means to honor our histories, and what our history can tell us about our future. Jamie's cultural and familial background gives a profound sense of kinship and belonging as well as what it means to connect to the land, to ceremony, language, and to others. The responsibilities they have to their community, kin, and culture is a mindset that extends throughout their body of work. Using multiple mediums and the incorporation of traditional craftworks gives a way to visualize the complexities offered by looking at ideas such as reconciliation for Indigenous communities and what living in the colonial present means. With works tackling topics of imperialism, colonial genocide, and historical loss, Jamie attempts to pull the thread of resistance to these atrocities through cultural connection and emphasizing collective survival.

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