Strand Gallery

October 7, 2023 - January 7, 2024

ArtWalk Reception
Saturday, October 7, 2023
6 – 9 PM
Artist talk at 6:30 PM

These exhibitions are supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

Joe Harjo
Indian Removal Act I: American Progress

Indian Removal Act I: American Progress is the first part of a three-part exhibition series by San Antonio-based artist Joe Harjo that he describes as “delving into the historical and contemporary issues that have profoundly affected Native American communities, our land, our narratives, and our pursuit of prosperous futures.” The title of this body of work derives from the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly displaced Native nations – including Harjo’s own, the Muscogee Nation – to “unsettled” lands west of the Mississippi River. Through addressing the current misrepresentations, homogenization, and undervaluation of Native culture, the work brings visibility to and emphasizes Native growth, contributions, resourcefulness, adaptability, and existence of Native people within contemporary spaces.

Indian Removal Act I: American Progress focuses on Manifest Destiny, a 19th-century belief held by many Americans that the United States was destined to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This ideology had a profound and negative impact on Native American people, and Manifest Destiny resulted in land displacement, violent conflicts, loss of cultural heritage, treaty violations, and genocide. The exhibition includes sculptures, video installations, large-scale text pieces, photographs, and textile work that Harjo describes as “speaking against the disappearing and erasing of Native people, our histories, our lives as we live them, and our futures.”

Galveston Arts Center will host the first installation of Harjo’s three-part exhibition series, followed by the second at the Contemporary at Bluestar in San Antonio in Spring of 2024 and the third will be at the Contemporary at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth in Fall of 2024.

joeharjo.com