Photo of Suzan Shown Harjo by Lucy Fowler Williams, Penn Museum
Hosted by Joe Williams, 5 Plain Questions is a podcast that proposes 5 general questions to Native American and Indigenous artists, creators, musicians, writers, movers and shakers, and culture bearers.
In this episode, meet Penny Kagigebi. Penny is a Two-Spirit queer artist, curator, and community collaborator. She is Crane Clan from White Earth Nation Ojibwe in northwestern Minnesota. For years, Penny has worked at the intersection of queer activism and cultural healing, teaching and practicing porcupine quillwork and birchbark basketry to continue the lineages of these practices.
Recently, Penny curated Queering Indigeneity in collaboration with the Minnesota Museum of American Art. This multi-year, multi-generational project celebrates the vision and diversity of Two-Spirit, Native queer, gender expansive artists in the Upper Midwest.
Her work has been shown across the Upper Midwest since 2018, supported by grants from the Region 2 Arts Council Anishinaabe Arts Initiative, the Lake Regions Arts Council, and the Minnesota State Arts Board, and recognized with fellowships like First Peoples Fund's Cultural Capital and the Emerging Curators Institute. She also serves as co-vice chair for the Manoomin Arts Initiative in Mahnomen, Minnesota, quietly doing the patient necessary work for tending culture back to life.
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Art of the Rural is honored to support 5 Plain Questions. We are grateful to individual donors across the country, the Ford Foundation, and Good Chaos for making these conversations possible. Learn more about our work and show your support at artoftherural.org
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