Dylan Miner

On view from September 8‑October 14, 2017 in the Stamps Gallery (201 S. Division St., Ann Arbor), Vital Signs for a New America is a group exhibition including work by Dylan Miner, Sheryl Oring, and the performance collective The Hinterlands. There will be an exhibition reception on Friday, September 8 from 6 – 8 pm. The exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.

Curated by Srimoyee Mitra, Vital Signs for a New America uses a range of meaningful and compelling of community-engaged approaches to invite the public to join Miner, Oring, and The Hinterlands in speaking out and sharing stories; listening and re-learning; and remembering the past to imagine new possibilities for the future.

Active public engagement is at the heart of Vital Signs for a New America. Each work on view in this group exhibition offers opportunities to interact directly with the artists and their art. As part of the exhibition programming, the gallery will become a common space for storytelling and tea drinking with Dylan Miner; a bustling executive assistant’s office with Sheryl Oring; and a tactile, expansive personal archive with the performance collective The Hinterlands. Vital Signs invites the public to speak out, listen, and imagine new models for inclusive futures.

Dylan Miner: Elders Say We Don’t Visit Anymore
Saturdays, September 9‑October 14, 1 – 3 pm

Dylan Miner, Director of American Indian and Indigenous Studies at Michigan State University, is an artist, activist, and scholar. Miner identifies as a Wiisaakodewinini (Métis), the Ojibwe designation for a Native male of mixed ancestry. While conducting an oral history project with retired Anishinaabe autoworkers, elders shared the idea that ​“we don’t visit as much as we used to” due to the limitations of urbanizations, wage labor, and settler colonialism to name a few. In response, Miner was inspired to explore the methodology of visiting with an art gallery or museum context. Elders Say We Don’t Visit Anymore is a creative action where the public is invited to share tea and conversation with the artist, creating new friendships and maintaining social relationships within a specific time and place.