Reclaiming Home

• Includes work by the artists Noah Billie, Wilson Bowers, Houston R. Cypress, Elisa Harkins, Alyssa Osceola, Jessica Osceola, C. Maxx Stevens, Tony Tiger, Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie, Brian Zepeda, Corinne Zepeda, and Pedro Zepeda.
• Includes Seminole artists in Florida as well as Oklahoma where much of the diaspora was forced to relocate
• First full treatment of this culture through its contemporary art
• Accompanies major exhibition at The Ringling, Sarasota, FL (March 18 – September 4, 2023)

Expressing stories of Native American survival and resistance, Reclaiming Home: Contemporary Seminole Art explores the work of twelve contemporary artists of the Seminole diaspora.

This stunning volume illustrates how Seminole and mixed-heritage artists combine traditional skills and techniques—knowledge passed down to them from elders, family members, and ancestors—with innovative modes of expression and varied materials, including photo-based and digital collage techniques, performance, video, installation art, and mixed media. Their work engages concepts of hybridity and image-making and highlights social issues impacting Native communities today, from environmental protection to public health imperatives.

Accompanied by critical and personal essays by leading scholars as well as artists’ statements and an interview, Reclaiming Home: Contemporary Seminole Art proposes contemporary works of art as powerful expressions of Native sovereignty.

Durante Blais-Billie (Seminole) is the founding contributor of Seminole Tribe’s first Two-Spirit Affirmation project and the former assistant director of the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation in Florida.,

Dr. Stacy E. Pratt (Muscogee) is a freelance writer specializing in Indigenous arts and literature.

Hulleah J. Tsinhnahjinnie (Taskigi/Diné (Navajo)/Seminole) is an artist, director of the C.N. Gorman Museum, and professor in the Department of Native American Studies at the University of California, Davis.

Ola Wlusek is the Keith D. and Linda L. Monda Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, FL.