Jamie Ray John

About Jamie

Jamie John is a two-spirit Anishinaabe and Korean-American multi-disciplinary artist living and working in Michigan. They are a dually enrolled tribal citizen of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the United States of America. Intertwining personal narrative along with historical memory and cultural loss allows their work to speak to what it means to be Indigenous, what it means to honor our histories, and what our history can tell us about our future. John’s cultural and familial background offers a profound sense of kinship and belonging while defining what it means to connect to the land, to ceremony, language, and to others. The responsibilities they have to their community, kin, and culture is a mindset that extends throughout their body of work.

My pedagogical framework is influenced by traditional Anishinaabeg teachings of reciprocity and respect. I hope to show that our culture isn’t ornamental, but instead a fundamental part of our ways of life.