Feel Good Friday: Feel Good Frybread
It’s finally Friday, and you deserve to Feel Good!
November is Feel Good Frybread an evening open to all celebrating Indigenous communities hosted by UMMA, The Office of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs’ Native American Heritage Month Committee, and U-M’s Native American Student Association. And yes, there will be frybread!
Feel Good Frybread 2025 will be the culminating event for Andrea Carlson: Future Cache, the UMMA exhibition that has been a catalyst of collaborations across the region to welcome and uplift Native communities and students since it opened in June 2022.
Featuring an artist panel on Indigenous Futurism with Andrea Carlson, Frank Waln, and Debra Yepa-Pappan and a musical performance by Frank Waln, frybread by Eva and Robin Menefee of Anishnabe Meejim, book giveaways, hands-on art making with Heron Hill Designs, and more!
SCHEDULE Of EVENTS:
7:00PM
- Storytelling with Ariel Ojibway
7:45PM
- Artist discussion “Future Cache: Native Arts and Culture Keeping” with AndreaCarlson, Debra Yepa-Pappan, Frank Waln
- Opening & closing performances by Asiginaak-Negamojig / Blackbird Singers and Grandmother Moon Drummers
9:15PM
- Performance by Frank Waln
THROUGHOUT
(while supplies last)
- Frybread sampling with Anishnabe Meejim
- Community Tables
- Artmaking with Heron Hill Designs
- IndigiLit Book Giveaway
Special Guests & Performers
Andrea Carlson
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 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
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. 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
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.
Heron Hill Designs
Ariel Ojibway
Asiginaak-Negamojig / The Blackbird Singers
GrandMother Moon Drummers
More About This Event Series
SUPPORT
This program is presented in partnership with the Native American Student Association, Native American Heritage Month Committee and the Office for Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs. Generously supported by Rackham Graduate School, Spectrum Center, Arts Initiative, the Native American Studies Program, the Center for World Performance Studies, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Speaker Series.
UMMA’s Feel Good Friday events are generously supported by Fidelity Investments.
