The Prairie as Pattern: Learning from Reservation-Era Beadwork

The Donald Danforth Jr. Lecture on Native American Art will be given by Annika Johnson, the Stacy and Bruce Simon Curator of Native American Art at The Joslyn Art Museum.

Rooted in deep connections between design, community, and place, 19th-century beadwork from the prairie region is marked by the fluid movement of visual forms across communities. These shifting aesthetics challenge institutional expectations of fixed styles or singular authorship and invite new ways of learning from the past. This lecture draws on active, collaborative research with beadworkers and museum collections to consider the relationships behind artworks and what these expressions of care and skill continue to teach.