Miner, Dylan

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Metis artist and educator, Dylan Miner of Michigan State University is profiled.

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Dylan Miner:
Metis (Wiisaakodewinini) artist and academic Dylan Miner is the Director of
American Indian Studies and Associate Professor at Michigan State University. His latest
Winnipeg art exhibit “Silence of Sovereignty” was hosted at the Martha Street Studio in
Winnipeg, Manitoba from July 26, to August 7, 2015. Dylan is a descendant of the
L’Hirondelles of Lesser Slave Lake and the Brissettes of Drummond Island and
Penetanguishene.
Included in this current exhibit are the Michif–Michin relief prints which feature
linocut images of wild plants such as fireweed, yarrow, sage and arrowhead. Printed with
an ink solution that Miner has handmade from berries he has picked himself and then
added a commercial binder. This series honours Miner’s ancestor, Josephte Brissette
Miner, who was a Medicine woman.
Also in Miner’s exhibit is “The Elders Say We Don't Visit Anymore” which focuses
on the importance of conversation and tea — specifically, medicinal teas that are used in
North American Indigenous cultures.

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Dylan Miner sips some muskeg tea at his exhibit, “The Elders Say
We Don't Visit Anymore.”
One wasn’t offered bags of orange pekoe or Earl Grey tea. Miner features
traditional teas that he's received in trade or gathered from nature. "Everything from some
raspberry leaf, just the dried leaves of the raspberry plant, [and] many people are familiar
with chamomile," he said. “There's so much of this stuff growing in our neighbourhoods
that we don't even think about.” Miner said he created the exhibit out of conversations he
had with retired Anishinaabe autoworkers and elders in his home community.

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The elders told him people would get together to drink tea, eat food, share stories
and have fun. “There's something about the slowing down … having a relationship,
sitting and drinking together, drinking kind of medicinal drinks that I think it's
important,” he said. “I think in many communities, at least especially in the Great
Lakes, the word for coffee is mishkiki wabo … so 'black medicine water.' So I'm really
interested thinking about tea as a form of mishkiki wabo, or medicine liquid, as a way that
can bring us together to have conversations around it.”
As an artist, Miner has exhibited widely, including the Institute of American Indian
Arts, the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, National Museum of
Mexican Art, Native American Rights Fund, La Galería de la Raza, Nokomis Center and
countless alternative and university galleries, community centers, union halls, and
anarchist bookstores. His working-class comics are included in Studs Terkel’s Working: A
Graphic Adaptation (New Press, 2009) and Wobblies: A Graphic History of the
Industrial Workers of the World. In 2005, as part of the centennial celebrations of the
founding of the IWW, Miner’s two-person exhibition with Carlos Cortéz
Koyokuikatl traveled throughout North America and the world. In 2010, he was awarded
an Artist Leadership fellowship from the National Museum of the American Indian. From
this award, he created the exhibition Anishinaabensag Biimskowebshkigewag (Native
Kids Ride Bikes). In 2010 and 2011, Miner had nine solo exhibitions, including Urban
Shaman Gallery and various university galleries. His book Creating Aztlàn: Chicano Art,
Indigenous Sovreignty, and Lowriding Across Turtle Island was published in 2014.
Publications:
Miner, Dylan A.T. “From Aztlán to Red River: The Continental Commonalities of
Chicano and Métis Anti-Colonialism.” In D. Gagnon, D. Combet, L. GabouryDiallo (Eds.), Metis Histories and Identities: A Tribute to Gabriel Dumont.
Winnipeg: Presses Universitaires de Saint-Boniface 2009. 185-99.
__________ “When They Awaken: Indigeneity, Miscegenation, and Anticolonial
Visuality.” In Baca, Damian and Villanueva, Victor (Eds.). Rhetorics of the Americas
3114 BCE to 2012 CE. New York: Palgrave, 2010: 169-195.
__________ Creating Aztlán: Chicano Art, Indigenous Sovereignty, and Lowriding
Across Turtle Island. University of Arizona Press, First Peoples: New Directions in
Indigenous Studies; 2014.

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Octopus bag created by Dylan’s great-great-grandmother Josette Miner (nee Brissette).
Photo courtesy of Dylan Miner.

Compiled by Lawrence Barkwell
Coordinator of Metis Heritage and History Research
Louis Riel Institute
[email protected]

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