In the Twin Cities art scene this weekend, a film festival brings Indigenous stories to the screen, documenting the sacred history of Minnesota land, the experiences of Native people leaving their reservations, and the story of Warroad, Minnesota, hockey player Henry Boucha, whose career was cut short after an on-ice injury. 

At Public Functionary, two shows explore how Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) artists navigate the world through their creative practices. Additionally, Nigerian artist Tunde Odunlade’s collection of textiles and prints will be on view at Art at 967 Payne, with a chance to meet him at the opening reception.

Indigenous film fest reveals Pike Island’s sacred history

The Twin Cities Film Fest’s “MNmicro Film Festival” will spotlight six Indigenous films on Sunday, including “Stories I Didn’t Know,” a documentary by St. Paul filmmaker Rita Davern that reveals the truth buried beneath her Irish family’s claim to Pike Island, located at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. The island, acquired by Davern’s great-grandfather in 1873, was a point of family pride — until Davern discovered its deep historical ties to the Dakota people.

The documentary began, not with plans to investigate her Minnesota heritage, but with a Thanksgiving conversation in 2014, when her niece encouraged her to document the “1,200-year story” of their family’s Irish roots. It was a history Davern had been piecing together for more than 40 years.

“She said to me, ‘We have to do something with this so it doesn’t get lost again,’” Davern said. “So we started … I had no experience in filmmaking at all. I didn’t even know how to operate a DSL camera at that point.”

Davern took classes at FilmNorth in St. Paul and teamed up with documentary filmmaker Melody Gilbert and Dakota educator and activist Ramona Kitto Stately, whose involvement shifted the project’s focus to her family’s connection to Pike Island and its Dakota history.

“As soon as I told the story of my family and Pike Island, Melody said, ‘Rita, now we have a film,’” Davern said. While initially hesitant to probe into her family’s past, Davern eventually embraced the opportunity to center Indigenous voices.

“Stories I Didn’t Know” offers viewers a front-row seat to Davern’s journey of discovery, revealing that the island is not only regarded as the birthplace of the Dakota people but also the site where the theft of their ancestral lands began. 

Confronting this legacy in the company of Indigenous people was challenging, Daven said, as she strove to avoid any sense of “white fragility” while engaging with the history. 

“It’s scary because I knew that if I was going to work with the Indian Land Tenure Foundation and Ramona, I was going to make mistakes and my white identity was going to show,” she said. “That’s really scary and you can’t cover it up, it just shows. So, you gotta get comfortable with being uncomfortable and it’s a very fine way to live because you do grow.”

Other films at the festival include “The Jingle Dress” by William Eigen which follows a family who moves from the White Earth Indian reservation in northern Minnesota to Minneapolis to investigate the mysterious death of an uncle. In “The Electric Indian,” filmmaker Leya Hale documents the journey of Ojibwe hockey player Henry Boucha from high school tournaments to the Olympics, and the impact of his on-ice injury. Elizabeth Day and Jon Olshefski’s documentary “Without Arrows” tells the story of a champion grass dancer from the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe who leaves his reservation to start anew in Philadelphia. 

Filmmaker Missy Whiteman will also showcase two short films: “The Coyote Way,” a sci-fi docu-narrative film about a young boy at a crossroads between joining a Native street gang and going on a journey of self-discovery, and “We Come From the Stars,” which explores the sacred sites and stories of the Dakota, Ojibwe and Arapaho tribes.

Artist explores Nigeria’s social fabric

The Art at 967 Payne gallery will host “The Colors of Dialogue,” an exhibit of 40 works by Nigerian artist Tunde Odunlade, featuring large-scale batik tapestries, beaded quilts and oil paintings that blend Yoruba art traditions with contemporary techniques.

Odunlade’s work draws on his Nigerian heritage to explore social issues in his country. In “Imbalance,” a quilted tapestry visualizes Nigeria’s oil industry, depicting “black gold” flowing up pipelines to enrich elites while those at the source remain marginalized. “Artificial Intelligentsia” envisions artificial intelligence dressed like a human, criticizing society’s trust in technology, while “Do Fortunes Really Fall from Heaven Above?” questions whether prosperity is rooted in divine favor or earthly resources.

The opening reception is Friday, November 15, from 5 to 9 p.m., offering visitors an opportunity to engage with Odunlade and his work. 

Shows explore Afro-Arab identity, practice of BIPOC artists

Public Functionary is celebrating five years of supporting emerging BIPOC artists with two exhibits that explore identity, migration and artistic practice.

The first exhibit, “Your Hands Were Making Artifacts in the Corner of My Mind,” features the work of 22 artists currently in the Public Functionary Studios program. Located in the main gallery, the show explores how artistic practice serves as both a creative visual process and a means of orienting themselves within personal and societal landscapes. Curated by Jonathan Herrera Soto, the exhibit features textile artist Alexandra Beaumont, multimedia artist Whitney Terrill, graphic designer Ashley Koudou, painter and illustrator Philipo Dyauli, and moccasin maker Delaney Keshena, among others.

The second exhibit, “Black Memory Red Sea,” presents Ethiopian-Yemeni artist nouf saleh’s exploration of her family’s migration across the Red Sea and childhood memories in Yemen. The exhibit, located in the upstairs gallery, resists the erasure of Afro-Arab communities.