Contemporary Indigenous American Artworks from the Travois Collection

Blending tradition and history with contemporary commentary and aesthetics, the exhibition Going Home is at turns political, personal, satirical, and poignant.

Kansas City-based Travois, a company with a focus on affordable housing and economic growth in Indigenous communities, loaned the Library more than a dozen works for the exhibition – including painting, printmaking, and photography – uplifting Indigenous voices, and inviting us into critical dialogues.

The word “travois” symbolizes the aims of both the collector and the artists. It refers to an animal-led conveyance, historically utilized on the Great Plains of North America, consisting of two trailing poles across which a load-bearing platform was propped. The idea of conveying can be perceived not only in terms of transporting or carrying goods or personal belongings but also in terms of communicating a message.

Artists highlighted in Going Home represent potent affirmations of identity, community, and reclamations of Indigenous place. Artists include:

• Dylan Calvin (Choctaw)
• Mona Cliff (Aaniiih, Nakota)
• Tom Farris (Otoe-Missouria, Cherokee)
• Daryll Growing Thunder (Assiniboine/ Sioux)
• Billy Hensley (Chickasaw)
• Norma Howard (Choctaw/ Chickasaw)
• Dean Hunt (Heiltsuk)
• America Meredith (Cherokee Nation)
• Chris Pappan (Osage, Kaw, Cheyenne River Lakota Sioux)
• Kevin Red Star (Apsaalooke/ Crow)
• Wendy Red Star (Apsaalooke/ Crow)
• Sarah Sense (Chitimacha/ Choctaw)