Hodinöhsö:ni Juried Art Show Goes Virtual

By Mahlon Smoke

Ganondagan, Seneca Art and Culture Center has hosted the Hodinöhsö:ni Art Show for four years with a showcase of talented Indigenous artists from all over the country, from Washington State, First Nations in Canada, and none other than Akwesasne. As annual art events are canceled or transferred online, the Hodinöhsö:ni Art Show made the same decision to go virtual and continue to showcase talented artists. Even so, Seneca Art and Culture Center main curator Michael Galban, organized an art show in a year that has been lacking in art shows, art festivals, and cultural events.

Galban has been the curator for the Seneca Art and Culture Center for a decade now but running an art show like this one comes with a lot of steps, "Step one is securing the funding, said Galban in reference to what it takes to running the art show. Their main supporter and funding source is a charity group known as Thaw Charitable Trust. The Trust has been financially supporting the Hodinöhsö:ni Art Show since its inception and Galban remains grateful to them for their continued support.

Galban expanded on why the support of Thaw Charitable Trust is very important, "We recognize that there is a real need, not just this year but every year, for artists to have support and recognition to have their work exhibited."

Following the financial support is the second step; which is getting the word out to artists early enough so they may start planning what they want to submit. Considering artists are everywhere, especially those among the Haudenosaunee people, social media was a great resource for the team to use to help spread the word while generating excitement and interest for the show. According to Galban, there were 111 individual submissions to the show with five divisions that the artist can submit to: beadwork, basketry, traditional arts and 2 dimensional. Submitted art work is from people who are from the Haudenosaunee world and familiar with that style of Haudenosaunee art, history and culture, such as the beadwork, the basketry, and more.

Judges are curators or art directors themselves who bring their knowledge of the art world to help select the winners of the Art Show. These judges take a closer look at the selections, using a mathematical formula that is used to help determine technique and mastery of the art form. There is a score that is kept and reviewed by the committee to determine who the winners will be. Once the judges have made the final decision and agree on the winners, the winning artist is contacted and notified. Subsequently, the prize money is awarded.

According to Galban, Akwesasne continues to be the community that has the largest submission of artists.

"I'm not sure why most submissions come from Akwesasne," laughs Galban, "it's probably because they have a lot of artist there."

However, Galban makes the point about how this doesn't really take away from the point of the show, "We have submissions from all over the Haudenosaunee confederacy, all of whom are artists encouraged to create art they love, worked hard on, and wish to enter it for possible prize money, recognition, and ultimately to get their art out there and stimulate sales."

Galban also mentions the New York State Museum (NYSM) buys directly from the show. NYSM send representatives every year to scope out and purchase pieces from the show and have collected dozens of pieces for the Museum.

Since the pandemic has forced the event to become virtual it has changed the show dramtically and taken away the physicalness of seeing a piece of artwork live. To achieve this in a virtual art show artist would have had to take professional photos of their pieces and submit them. To help with this, Galban and staff brought the artists to Ganondagan where they were given a half an hour with the professional photographer to shoot the submitted art piece and have professional portrait done of the artist. Later the artist was interviewed for their profile on the Ganondagan website.

"That was great, except some of the artist couldn't participate, due to distance. Some were too far away and we weren't going to have anyone from Akwesasne until they widen the radius of travel," said Galban.

He was worried that the Akwesasronon who submitted to the show would be unable to come to get their pieces photographed, portraits and interviews. Luckily, Akwesasne widen the radius to 300 miles and thus allowing Akwesasronon to bring their work to Ganondagan. Unfortunately, there were the artists from across the country unable to take advantage of the professional photographers at the museum so, Ganondagan gave artists another option to submit their pieces digitally.

Galban said, "It's a challenge, but we're getting through it."

The Virtual Art Show will premiere on the Ganondagan website on November 6th, 2020 and will be open for everyone to view and enjoy all the amazing pieces and work of the Indigenous artists from all around the Confederacy.