This Art Walk Elevates Dakota History

I climb the steep path from the visitor center at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chaska to the Harrison Sculpture Garden, keeping one eye on the blue arrow on my phone’s screen. It’s leading me through a riot of fall color to a stone circle at the highest point in the parkland. I’m not here for the stone circle or the sculpture sitting in it — there’s nothing concrete indicating what I’m about to experience. This is the first stop on Dakota Sacred Hoop Walk, the latest work by Spirit Lake Dakota artist Marlena Myles.

Myles’ new work — like her other public art installation, “Dakota Spirit Walk,” in downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota — is an augmented reality (AR) experience. Myles wanted a way to share her ancestors’ connection to Minnesota landscapes, and their history, language and culture, without making any physical impact on the environment itself. The answer came from an unexpected source: an interactive game.

“I saw Pokemon Go and I thought: ‘People are really having a good time going outside and looking at their neighborhood in a different way.’ When I look at the land, I see Dakota spirits and connections. I thought I could do something similar,” she explains. AR made sense. Via a smartphone app, her art and storytelling come together in locations significant to Dakota people to create an immersive installation.

This new piece explores the Sacred Hoop, in Dakota doctrine a metaphor for the circle of life. When finished in spring 2023, the walk will lead visitors to five familiar Arboretum landmarks, revealing Dakota wisdom hidden beneath the surface.

At the stone circle, I scan the information board with my phone, then step inside. Wóȟpe, the Dakota spirit of harmony, rises ahead of me. Seen through my phone screen, she is as vibrant as the colors of the landscape around her but ephemeral, like the warm breeze making the leaves dance. Through my headphones, Wóhpe’s voice narrates the lessons of the circle and introduces its other inhabitants, the Dakota spirits of the four compass points. It is an immersive experience but I remain fully present in the setting.

Myles is a self-taught artist, and uses graphic design software to incorporate the colorful geometric designs — abstract and figurative — typical of Dakota art into her own vibrant pieces. Hundreds of layers are fused digitally, creating the images she uses in prints, murals, books, fabrics and animations. This was less a departure from tradition, more a continuance of her culture, she explains, which has always embraced innovation. Her art “translates modern places into Dakota.”

A self-declared activist, she’s always been interested in the power of art to communicate important messages. She wanted to use her work to celebrate Native American culture and oral traditions of her community, and to tell the history of the land through a Dakota perspective. Myles thought Minnesotan people from all backgrounds should see images that represent her culture in public spaces.

Raised in Little Earth, a Native American community in Minneapolis, Myles felt a disconnect between what her schoolmates saw in the land around them and the meanings she perceived beneath its surface. “I never really saw anything in Minneapolis that showed this was Dakota homelands,” she says, adding, “They lived here their whole life, and it never occurred to them they were speaking Dakota when they said: ‘I'm from Minnesota.’”

In 2014, she started working as a gallery attendant, then graphic designer, at All My Relations, a Native American art space in Minneapolis. She used the opportunity to “see what other professional artists were doing.” But it was in 2019 that Myles really began to realize the potential of her work. “It wasn’t until I created the Dakota Land Map that I saw it become impactful, not just in museums or gallery spaces but in public spaces, schools and businesses,” she says.

The map, she says, “tells the story of the past, present and future of Dakota people,” with locations throughout the Twin Cities identified by their Dakota names — Isánthanka Mazóphiye Thánka (Mall of America), Mnísota Wóunspe Wakántuya (the University of Minnesota) — and locations of significance to her people, such as burial mounds, clearly marked. The mapping is ongoing, with the latest, the Minnesota River Valley, published in early December.

I don't want people to always engage with Native art in a museum space, because that puts us as ‘antiques’ — it doesn't put our stories on the land. I want to create things that make nature into something that you can experience in a deeper way.

Working as a coding teacher, Temple University sophomore Avi Knotts often heard parents express the wish that they could afford training for their children. Avi understood this wish, having grown up in a financially unstable household with no access to computers. Through tenacity and perseverance, Avi gained admission to a computer science program that changed her life path. Her research into artificial intelligence and algorithmic bias inspired Avi to create her nonprofit, Avi I.T. Inc., providing “the opportunity to acquire computer science skills, alleviate the digital divide,” and offer students the tools they need to learn valuable skills in a supportive environment.

The possibilities this technology opens up for artists are mind-blowing, and Myles is keen to pass on her knowledge by mentoring up-and-coming Native American artists.

Local Lakota artist Olawan Un Wicawiyun Winyan, known as Delaena Uses Knife, has a visual style that channels the graphics of Disney and Pixar. Like her mentor, she has an eye on educating future generations and wants to use her illustrations in books for children. From Myles, she’s learning how to develop animated 3D AR sequences and to navigate her way around the commercial side of the art business. Shared experience brought the two artists together. “She wanted me to help her create work where she can speak about how contemporary Lakota people are living in Rapid City,” says Myles: “I want to show her as much as I can.”

We can tell stories that aren't often told, but also expose people to literally see somebody else's worldview.

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