Artist in Residence

The Henry Ford invites internationally renowned artists to spend time in Greenfield Village's Liberty Craftworks each season. The artist in residence collaborates with our artisans, creating unique objects that demonstrate their distinctive approach.

October 9-11

Jamie John is a two-spirit trans and queer Anishinaabe and Korean-American multi-disciplinary artist and powwow dancer (he/him and they/them). They are a dually enrolled tribal citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the United States of America. Jamie's cultural and familial background gives a profound sense of kinship and belonging as well as what it means to connect to the land, to our ancestry, and to each other.

From early on, art has been a way of navigating and communicating the complexities of colonialism, Indigenous worldviews, gender variance, and the intergenerational capacity for trauma and joy. The responsibilities Jamie has to their community(ies), kin, and culture is a mindset that extends throughout their body of work. Jamie weaves a tapestry of Native life in the 21st century by drawing on similarities among Indigenous nations, the global, steadfast fight for decolonization, and understandings of belonging to land, family, and non-human kin. The centering of lived experience allows for a palpable sense of intimacy and radical vulnerability to permeate throughout their body of work.

While at Greenfield Village, Jamie will create prints that are inspired by the village's native land as well as The Henry Ford's land acknowledgement.