On the occasion of the closing of Andrea Carlson Future Cache, we invite you to a dynamic panel discussion featuring Native artists, educators, and world builders Andrea Carlson, Frank Waln, and Debra Yepa-Pappan. Together they will explore Indigenous Futurism(s)—a movement that transcends colonial boundaries to envision expanded possibilities for Indigenous realities. Through their diverse practices and deep connections with tribal communities, Indigenous organizations, galleries, and public arts spaces, these artists will share how art serves as a powerful lens to honor our past, nurture our present, and imagine a thriving future.
Offered in conjunction with the Native American Heritage Month celebration, Feel Good Frybread, this event celebrates the Native American arts, cultures, and communities.
Andrea Carlson (Ojibwe) is a visual artist who maintains a studio practice in northern Minnesota and Chicago, Illinois. Carlson works primarily on paper, creating painted and drawn surfaces with many mediums. Her work addresses land and institutional spaces, decolonization narratives, and assimilation metaphors in film. Her work has been acquired by institutions such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, the Denver Art Museum, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and the National Gallery of Canada. Carlson was a recipient of a 2008 McKnight Fellow, a 2017 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors award, a 2021 Chicago Artadia Award, and a 2022 United States Artists Fellowship. Carlson is a co-founder of the Center for Native Futures in Chicago.
Her 2022 UMMA commission, Future Cache, is on display at the University of Michigan Museum of Art through November 30, 2025. In this installation, Carlson combines text and imagery to bring attention to the history of violent displacement of the Cheboiganing (Burt Lake) Band from northern Michigan.
Debra Yepa-Pappan (Jemez Pueblo/Korean) is a visual artist and the co-founding director of exhibitions and programs at the Center for Native Futures, a contemporary art space located in the heart of Downtown Chicago that is dedicated to Native artists. She previously served as the Community Engagement Coordinator at the Field Museum Chicago, where her work was crucial in developing the current Native Truths exhibition. Her multimedia art practice combines digital collage and photography, focusing on themes related to her mixed-race identity, cultural pride, and a sense of home. She incorporates symbolic imagery influenced by both her cultural backgrounds and the urban environment in which she was raised. Her works are part of the collections at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, the Schingoethe Center at Aurora University in Aurora, IL, the British Library in London, and various private collections worldwide.
Frank Waln (Sicangu Lakota) is an award winning multi-genre music artist, public speaker and educator from the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota. He is the recipient of three Native American Music Awards and has made appearances on MTV, The History Channel and ESPN. Waln curated Chicago’s first ever all Indigenous music showcase during the 2022 Pritzker Pavilion Outdoor Summer Music Series, as well as the music exhibit within the Native American Exhibition Hall at the Field Museum in Chicago. His impactful work has been showcased at prominent venues such as the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Linden Museum in Germany, and the Kennedy Center. Frank currently teaches in the Irving Gilmore School of Music at Western Michigan University.
This panel is presented in partnership with the University of Michigan Museum of Art.
Special thanks to the Cheboiganing (Burt Lake) Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians. For more information visit BurtLakeBand.org.
Lead support for Future Cache is provided by Lizzie and Jonathan Tisch, Erica Gervais Pappendick and Ted Pappendick, and the U-M Office of the Provost.
Series presenting partners: Detroit PBS, ALL ARTS, and PBS Books. Media partner: Michigan Public.