GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Three new murals have been completed at the Grand Rapids Public Museum to accompany the soon-to-be-renovated Anishinaabe exhibit called “Anishinabek: The People of this Place.”
The Anishinaabe are made up of Indigenous people from across the Great Lakes region, including three major Michigan nations — the Chippewa, the Odawa and the Potawatomi.
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The three murals represent interpretations of the Anishinaabe creation myth, the “Council of the Three Fires” alliance and the modern lives of Anishinabek in Grand Rapids.
“Most of the time, you don’t have to pay a lot of money to see a mural,” Jamie John, an Anishinaabe and Korean-American multi-disciplinary artist and muralist commissioned by the public museum, said. “It’s quite big and it’s able to be seen freely.”
John’s mural includes various visual motifs amongst its neighborhood scene that hint at Anishinaabe history and tradition, including seven stars to symbolize the seven stops of the Anishinaabe migration route. This route historically led to sources of wild rice, a cultural food staple…