Awanigiizhik Bruce
Awanigiizhik Bruce
Tradition and Innovation
Photograph of Awanigiizhik by Nedahness Green
Art for Then, Now, After, Always
Ginanaakonaamin SARS-CoV-2 (2020). Courtesy of the artist.
Awanigiizhik Bruce (they/them) is a Two-Spirit Anishinaabe artist whose work explores the intersections between material art revitalization and Indigenous Futurism. Their practice is deeply interdisciplinary and relies heavily on research of all kinds from archival research in museum collections to visiting relatives around their reservation and chatting on the phone with elders.
Awanigiizhik comes from a family of artists who are seamstresses, sculptors, painters, clayworkers, and metalworkers. They learned to paint and sculpt from their father at a very young age and have been making art ever since. They remember, “I always got in trouble at school for drawing and sketching…It's always been a skill that I've enjoyed and wanted to foster.” This background, and instruction from myriad mentors and teachers over the years, has led Awanigiizhik to be an incredibly interdisciplinary artist who is comfortable working in over 40 different mediums.
They are interdisciplinary not just in the mediums they use, but also in the approach they bring to their work: “I think about art in a 4D way. I take it out of its context: If we’re talking about painting, then let's think about it as a poem, or a sculpture. How would a mechanic, or a chemist, or a woodworker approach a painting?” This approach makes Bead Night the perfect environment for Awanigiizhik to grow as an artist: “We have a very diverse group [on Bead Night] and when someone has a question, you have all these different artists coming at it from different backgrounds with their own perspectives, say, as a fashion artist or a basket artist.”
“How is my art justified within my own relationship with my own people, my own culture?”
Rendering of the microcontroller for Awanigiizhik’s work Aanikoobijiganag. Courtesy of the artist.
As an artist, Awanigiizhik is always thinking about context, whether it’s pondering how a mechanic or basket artist might approach a painting or working to understand how their art contributes to their community. They ask themself, “How is my art justified within my own relationship with my own people, my own culture?” This is incredibly important to them as an artist and directly connects to the notion of aanikoobijiganag, which is central to their work and which they describe as “that long continuous string that stretches beyond generations. Aanikoobijiganag is the word for your descendants and ancestors, your continuum within that chord.”
Keeping aanikoobijiganagin mind, they always consider how their work relates to the past, present, and future: “In a past sense, I consider myself a cultural revitalist. I know how to do porcupine basketry and porcupine quillwork in general. I’ve taught about 80 students how to do quillwork. I like to establish and continue the process of keeping that ancient artform alive.” It is important for Awanigiizhik to work as a teacher and mentor, passing along their knowledge to future generations of artist. When they make, teach, or learn ceremonial or traditional art, they are particularly mindful of process: “For traditional art, in order for it to stay alive – since it's aadizookaanag, a breathing living legend-spirit, a helper – in order for it to be alive and given properly, you want to do it in a good way. So in our teachings, you give away your first basket, you help those who are going to teach you by helping them harvest [materials]. I don't usually show ceremonial art that are considered relatives. I usually don't share or take photos of them.”
Complementing, yet contrasting from, the way Awanigiizhik approaches ceremonial art is how they think about Indigenous Futurisms. “Indigenous Futurisms is basically like Native Wakanda, land back,” they describe, laughing. Continuing, they ask “When you go through an art gallery and its native art - why does it have to be stereotypical like what the dominant culture believes native art should look like?” For them, it doesn’t.
Close up of the microcontroller for Awanigiizhik’s work Aanikoobijiganag. Courtesy of the artist.
Their art shatters these stereotypes, bringing new concepts and ideas to generations-old practices and aesthetics. They are always asking, what could we do next? For example, they muse “What about using VR headsets to tell Ojibwe stories? What can we do with the technology we have today? How can we use new tools to strengthen what we have?I want to see art transform, evolve.”
Bead Night has provided a forum for Awanigiizhik to discuss these creative ideas with other artists, something they’ve always wanted: “It’s always been a dream of mine to find kindred people to work together with.” In addition to being an artistic community, Bead Night also offers other kinds of support. “At the end of the day,” they say, “having the support system is the most important party. They [fellow artists on Bead Night] are helping you as an artist and as an individual.”
As an artist, and as an individual, Awanigiizhik exudes creativity, energy, and passion. As they work to revitalize and pass on traditional art practices, they also brim with innovative ideas about all the different ways Indigenous art can look, feel, and be experienced. “It just comes down to imagination, creativity, and willpower,” Awanigiizhik says – three attributes anyone who meets them can readily see they have in abundance.
Awanigiizhik with the outfit they made for their graduation. Courtesy of the artist.
Artist Biography
Awanigiizhik Bruce (Mikinaak-Wajiw Anishinaabe, Nehiyawe, Michif) is a Two-Spirit diverse-media artist based on the Turtle Mountain Chippewa Reservation. Their artistic practice traverses traditional and ceremonial Nehiyaw-pwat forms, mixed media, and multimedia work. Their primary mediums include ledger art, quillwork, beadworking, painting, and computer-coded LED art. Awanigiizhik’s art focuses on the Anishinaabe philosophy of Seven Generations, a code of ethics respecting ecological consciousness and Indigenous heritage. As an activist embodying this continuum central to their Tribal culture, Awanigiizhik brings practices from ancestral traditional revitalization to the exploration of Indigenous futurism. Awanigiizhik earned a BA in Ojibwe Language, Culture, and History at Turtle Mountain Community College. Their work has been exhibited at venues such as the AICHO (American Indian Community Housing Organization) Gallery and supported by programs such as the 2022 Rural Regenerators Fellowship by Springboard for the Arts. Awanigiizhik spends much of the year completing site-specific and collaborative projects around the country, like murals in Duluth, MN and Belcourt, ND. Currently, they are developing a body of work synthesizing quillwork, birch-bark basketry, and robotics, and designing educational and visual resources for Turtle Mountain Community College.