Indigenous artists lead completion of Vermillion mural

Community participation drives two-year project

Public art and community murals have the capacity to tell captivating stories about South Dakota hometowns—and a two-part mural project undertaken by the people of Vermillion is a perfect illustration.

The Vermillion Community Mural Project is a subsidiary of the Vermillion Community Project developed by Amber Hansen, an assistant professor at University of South Dakota’s Department of Fine Arts. The goal of the mural project is to create public art spaces for community members to share their stories through visual language. Through participation in the creation of the murals, community members can see themselves as imaginers and creators, capable of creating the world they want to live in.

“Not only is it important that our public spaces are filled with images and stories that reflect the people who live here, it is important to work together to unearth and amplify the stories that are missing,” Hansen said. “The act of coming together to share stories and ideas about what it means to be a part of a place is important to the fabric of that community.”

Preparation for the mural project began in April 2019 with choosing a location—the back side of the Coyote Twin Theater— making the new mural visible from City Hall. The project was led, designed and created by young community leaders and Indigenous artists Reyna Hernandez, Inkpa Mani and Elizabeth Skye.

The artists held public meetings, inviting Vermillion residents to share their thoughts on what they would like to see represented in a mural through workshops that included storytelling, drawings and poetry. From these conversations, the artists found a need to create space for telling the stories of women, specifically Indigenous women. Their full mural design became a two-sided diptych to wrap the northeast corner of the building.

“Through writing poetry, drawing and conversing, we were able to source broad recurring themes concerning motherhood, lack of female representation, untold stories, identity and unknown histories of this place,” Hernandez said. “The mural ultimately pays tribute to the importance of women in all cultures, while depicting the Sioux creation story and contemporary Indigenous narratives.”

The first portion of the mural was completed during summer 2019—Eúŋkičhetupi, a Lakota word meaning “we are restored” or “we come back to life.” The theme of rebirth encompasses not only the Sioux creation story but also the anticipation of restoration after the receding of the floodwaters,which were heavy on the minds of the Vermillion community in early 2019.

“Since completing our first community-based mural, there were many who also wanted to participate in this one,” Hansen said. “Because they had witnessed or experienced the process

of creating a mural before, they were more prepared to contribute to the discussion and painting process. This allowed us to dive deeper into discussions during the designing phase and allowed us to paint more swiftly as a group that had created together.”

The second portion of the mural project began in May of 2020. Titled Wanáȟča, the Lakota word for “flower that blooms,” the second part of the diptych fills a larger area than its counterpart. This mural is a visual introduction to the story depicted in Eúŋkičhetupi, portraying a Native woman “breathing life” into the rest of the scene. She is braiding her hair, which flows into the Missouri River and the water that is a central theme in the first mural. “Painting the two sides a year apart was extremely helpful,” Hernandez said. “When we’re working at the site we exert so much energy and spend a great deal of time prepping the wall and putting the lines and color down, so having a break was almost necessary. I felt significantly more comfortable Reyna Hernandez with the process while painting the second half of the wall because I had taken that year to reflect and plan for the coming summer.”

Reyna Hernandez

This newly completed side of the mural also relies heavily on using the image of a monarch butterfly as a metaphor for the presence of Indigenous cultures all across North America. The monarch butterfly’s migration requires four generations to complete and the monarch’s ability to draw from inherited generational knowledge in order to complete that journey is similar to the mural project.

“Throughout our time painting the second half of the mural, we had many people stop by to talk with us and to Amber Hansen tell us how much they appreciate the work we are doing,” Hansen said. “This was at the beginning of the pandemic during a time when many people were isolated from one another.”

Community participation was a key element, not only in getting the mural funded and approved, but also in the uniting aspect of a public art project like this one.

“I think that this project really helped me to understand the lasting impacts of public art and the importance of representation,” Hernandez said. “We took this project and shaped a contemporary Indigenous narrative around the overarching themes that we sourced from our meetings. It was such a meaningful experience to engage the community and to see how their input shaped different aspects of our imagery. This project has helped me to better understand community.”

Amber Hansen