Transformative Threads
Chicago Cultural Center
December 2023 – December 2024
See Spanish translation of this page. Spanish translation by Georgina Valverde.
The Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) Hall was built as a memorial to the sacrifices of Union Civil War veterans and their families. According to the renowned American abolitionist Frederick Douglass, their sacrifices were for freedom and a testament to the most profound declaration of human rights in history. Yet Douglass also argued in “On Remembering the Civil War,” an 1877 speech to the GAR, that the task of fully realizing this freedom remained unfinished. Moreover, the concurrent genocidal violence of the “American Indian Wars” and the settler colonial foundations of the United States further undermined this grand declaration of human rights.
In the face of these challenges and fractured freedoms, artists who are Black, Indigenous, and People of Color have persistently crafted a vision of liberation, grounded in the simultaneous processes of decolonization and emancipation. Transformative Threads highlights artists who carry forward this tradition, weaving meaning out of the traumas of the two longest wars in US history: the “American Indian Wars” and the “Global War on Terror.”
The GAR Hall is an important setting to consider the threads of connection that emerge between these artists differently impacted by the US long wars, from veterans to civilians. Through diverse approaches, the featured artists challenge colonialism, critique racism, and delve into the ways militarism is woven into daily life. Together, their artworks propose alternative ways of understanding US wars, create space for solidarity, and insist on survival.
Featuring artists Dorothy I. Burge [US military family member], Miridith Campbell (Kiowa) [US Marine Corps, Army, and Navy veteran], Mahwish Chishty [Pakistani-born American], and Melissa Doud (Ojibwe) [US Army veteran].
-
Transformative Threads is a year-long exhibition in the Grand Army of the Republic Hall at the Chicago Cultural Center. The featured works were originally included in the 2023 Triennial exhibitions and later curated into this extended presentation.
The Chicago Cultural Center is located at 78 E. Washington St., Chicago, IL 60602.
The exhibition is organized into four cases as noted below.
Celebrating a Tradition of Resistance
In Counting Coup, Miridith Campbell (Kiowa) appropriates a Civil War-era US cavalry coat and adorns it with Kiowa-style beadwork. The title Counting Coup refers to the Indigenous practice of counting the successful touches, or strikes, a warrior makes against a foe during battle. Such acts of bravery also include confiscating and repurposing enemy property. A number of the battles between Kiowa and US cavalry occurred during the Civil War. Campbell describes the work as representing a spoil of war.
In MQ-9/5, Mahwish Chishty starts with a silhouette of a General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper (drone), on which she paints colorful symbols influenced by the Pakistani folk tradition of “truck art.” Chishty uses the shape of these often unseen military vehicles to emphasize their presence and to juxtapose the terror they produce with representations of beauty, thus challenging and making visible the cruel reality of modern warfare with ornate and colorful designs.
Guiding Question: What unlikely connections emerge between the featured artworks? How do they inspire solidarity?
top image:
Miridith Campbell (Kiowa, b. 1966) [US Marine Corps, Army, and Navy veteran]
Counting Coup | 2002 | US cavalry coat, seed beads, and buckskin
Courtesy of the artist
bottom image:
Mahwish Chishty (b. 1980) [Pakistani-born American]
MQ-9/5 | 2013 | Gouache and tea stain on paper
Courtesy of the artist
Legacy of Rebellion
In Adobe Walls Battle Dress, Miridith Campbell visually retells the First Battle of Adobe Walls, in which her Kiowa ancestors fought alongside the Comanche and Apache, to repel the US Cavalry. The 1864 battle coincided with the Civil War raging in the east and was one of the largest “American Indian Wars” conflicts to take place on the Plains. It was caused by the influx of settlers and the subsequent diminishing of buffalo herds, an important Plains food source. During the battle, Chief Satanta (Kiowa) used a bugle to confuse the Cavalry, resulting in the three tribes successfully repelling and defeating Colonel Christopher “Kit” Carson and his troops.
The legacy of Indigenous rebellion against US frontier violence is reflected in the tradition of ledger art. Indigenous artists repurposed military ledgers to document their lives amidst settler colonialism—in some cases even while they were imprisoned by the US military. Campbell’s dress showcases illustrations inspired by nineteenth-century Kiowa ledger drawings depicting the Battle of Adobe Walls.
This is another example of how the featured artists have repurposed military technologies to create works of cultural resistance.
Guiding Question: Throughout this exhibition, how do Indigenous veteran artists unpack the contradictory roles of colonizer and colonized to critique US militarism and contribute to freedom movements?
Miridith Campbell (Kiowa, b. 1966) [US Marine Corps, Army, and Navy veteran]
Adobe Walls Battle Dress | 2022 | Cotton canvas dress with blue edging. Digitally printed ledger art on fabric, depicting the Adobe Walls Battle. Two sets of fully beaded belt bags. Two belts, one fully beaded on latigo with a German silver whip, and one fully brass-tacked on harness leather with a tacked whip.
Courtesy of the artist
Healing the Horrors of War
I was serving in Hawaii when I had a vision of making this dress. I know of many other Native Americans that incorporate their veteran experience into our cultural dance. I had wanted to be a jingle dress dancer because it’s a healing dance to help others. –Melissa Doud
Here Miridith Campbell and Melissa Doud transform their military uniforms into uniquely personal representations of their cultural traditions.
In Bullet Dress, Doud transforms her military uniform into a jingle dress. In the military Doud was tasked with collecting spent bullet casings from fellow soldiers, which allowed her to collect the 365 used in this piece. Doud took casings gleaned from the horrors of war and turned them into a jingle dress, traditionally used in dances for healing. She says, “Creating this dress after I came back from Iraq was part of my healing journey. Now I dance for others and can display the path I went through to get here.”
Based on Doud’s instructions, the dress is displayed with the back primarily visible to highlight her 20 years in the Army and the many units she served with. In July 2016, Doud collaborated with Warrior Songs and the Mambo Surfers to record “Bullet Dress,” a song about the dress that includes audio of Doud dancing in the jingle dress. (Learn more: mambosurfers.com)
In Marine Corps Dress—Southern Style Campbell represents her service in three branches of the US military. The dress illustrates her Marine Corps service, an essential aspect of her identity and history. The knife and awl cases, along with the “strike-a-light” bag, honors her Navy SeaBee service, while the handbag represents her time in the Army Airborne. The hash marks on the dress symbolize her total time in the military.
The reuse of military uniforms is yet another instance of how the showcased artists have transformed military equipment into expressions of cultural resistance.
Guiding Question: How do these works reckon with the ongoing violent histories of the US long wars, while imagining more peaceful futures?
top image:
Melissa Doud (Ojibwe, b. 1971) [US Army veteran]
Bullet Dress | 2016 | Army uniform with 365 bullet casings
Courtesy of the artist
bottom image:
Miridith Campbell (Kiowa, b. 1966) [US Marine Corps, Army, and Navy veteran]
Marine Corps Dress—Southern Style | 2022 | Tanned and smoked buckskin hide; antique, vintage, and contemporary seed beads; Red Broadcloth English Wool; vintage Marine Corps service buttons; Hawk Bells; and horse hair
Courtesy of the artist
Resisting Racism
“We Stand on the Shoulders of Our Ancestors” by Dorothy I. Burge highlights the legacy of US Army Colonel Charles Young, the third African American to graduate from West Point, in 1889. In addition to a portrait of Colonel Young, the quilt depicts sixteen African American female cadets raising their fists as a sign of unity and solidarity during Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2016. For Burge, these cadets graduating from West Point in a class that was 70% white is a testament to the continuing strength and perseverance of African Americans. The artist’s activist quilting practice speaks to the important tradition of quilting in telling and maintaining African American histories. As in other artworks in the
exhibition, Burge’s use of a cultural practice alters the power relations transforming a military history into a people’s history.
Guiding Question: What unexpected connections do you see between artworks by people impacted by war, from veterans to civilians?
Dorothy I. Burge (b. 1954) [US military family member]
“We Stand on the Shoulders of Our Ancestors” | 2018 | Cotton fabric and batting, buttons, beads, embroidered patch, printing on fabric, photo-transfer on fabric. Machine-quilted by Judy Wolff.
Courtesy of the artist
Artist Bios
Dorothy I. Burge [US military family member] is a Chicago-based multimedia artist and community activist. Burge is a military family member and a descendent from a long line of quilters from Mississippi who created beautiful quilts from recycled clothing. Her realization that the history and culture of her people was being passed through generations of quilters inspired her to use the medium as a tool to teach history, raise cultural awareness, and inspire action.
Miridith Campbell (Kiowa) [US Marine Corps, Army, and Navy veteran] was born into a military family. She enlisted in three US military branches, the Marine Corps while still in high school, and later the Army and Navy. She makes beaded works that pull from her Kiowa tradition, noting, “I see these creations as a way of understanding and giving a living history to my children, my family.”
Mahwish Chishty [Pakistani-born American] initially trained as a miniature painter in Lahore, Pakistan. She now combines new media and conceptual strategies with materials and techniques of South Asian art and craft traditions to examine politics as it relates to US/Pakistan relations. She is a recipient of numerous awards and fellowships. Chishty is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Melissa Doud (Ojibwe) [US Army veteran] is a powwow jingle dress dancer from the Lac du Flambeau Ojibwe Reservation in northern Wisconsin. Doud served 20 years in the Army and deployed in the Iraq War. She now works for the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs.