Featured Artists: Kelly Tsieriwaiens Back and Tyson Karonhiahere Back | Bruce Boots | Katsitsionni Fox Iakonikonrriosta | Margaret Jacobs | Niio Perkins | Roger Sosakete Perkins | Nanci Kanieson Ransom Marjorie Kaniehtonkie Skidders | Kit Thomas | Yvette White | Wilma Cook Zumpano
This exhibition brings together contemporary Mohawk (Kanien’kehá꞉ka) artists whose work is grounded in the living philosophy of the Thanksgiving Address, Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen—“the words that come before all else.” Far from a ceremonial opening alone, the Thanksgiving Address is a sophisticated ecological, ethical, and relational framework that continues to shape Mohawk ways of seeing, making, and being in the world.
Contemporary Mohawk art emerges from a worldview that understands all elements of creation—people, animals, plants, waters, winds, celestial bodies, and the spirit world—as interconnected and deserving of gratitude. The artists in this exhibition do not simply reference tradition; they give life to it. Through painting, sculpture, digital media, installation, beadwork, and performance, they translate ancestral teachings into present-day forms that speak to issues of land stewardship, climate responsibility, identity, continuance, and cultural endurance.
The Thanksgiving Address structures attention. It teaches us how to look slowly, deliberately, and relationally. In this exhibition, that structure becomes both conceptual and spatial: artworks echo the Address’s progression from the people outward to the natural and other worlds, reminding viewers that no being exists in isolation. Each work can be understood as an act of thanksgiving in itself—an offering that acknowledges responsibility as much as beauty.
Importantly, this exhibition resists the false divide between “traditional” and “contemporary.” Mohawk art has always been adaptive, innovative, and responsive. The materials may change, but the knowledge systems remain intact. The artists presented here assert continuity rather than nostalgia, presence rather than disappearance. Their work challenges colonial frameworks that confine Indigenous art to the past and instead positions Mohawk creativity as intellectually rigorous, politically engaged, and future-facing.
This exhibition invites viewers to encounter contemporary Mohawk art not as objects to be consumed, but as relationships to be entered. Guided by the Thanksgiving Address, we are reminded that gratitude is not passive—it is an active commitment to balance, respect, and responsibility. In listening to these works, we are asked to consider our own place within the web of life and the obligations that come with it.
– Marjorie Kaniehtonkie Skidders, exhibition curator
Thanksgiving Address
Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen: Words before All Else
(first line of many)
Akwe:kon enska entitewahwehnon:ni ne onkwa’nikon:ra tanon teiethinonhwerat:on ne onkweshon:ah ne akwe:kon sken:nen akenhake tsi teionkwatawenrie ne ken:tho ohwentsia:ke tewent:eron…eh kati’ niionhtonhak ne onkwa’nikon:ra.
We bring our minds together as one and give thanks for the people gathered here, that everyone is at peace here where we live on earth…now our minds are one.
Free and open to the public.
Supported by the Arts Collaborative.
Cover image: Kit Thomas, Possibility