I designed the 140-page catalog for the Detroit Institute of Art’s exhibition Contemporary Anishinaabe Art: A Continuation, curated by Denene De Quintal. The cover art is Jingle Dress, 2020, by Marcella Hadden (Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe).
Birch bark is a key part of my Anishinaabe people’s material culture and our original medium for writing. Thus, I incorporated scans of birch bark on the inside cover, the table of contents, and page dividers, grounding the project in this vital connection.
I used the reds and purples in the exhibition for the book’s color palette. Red, an important cultural color, features in headings and artist names as well as in a tiny thunderbird endmark for the essays.
Abstract bear motifs serve as graphical backgrounds for the page numbers, guarding the works by the artists and the essays by the authors.
Book may be purchased at Yale University Press.