The Honoring Dakota Project

Mitakuye Owasin "meh-tu-coo-yah Oh-wah-sin"We are all Related. 

The Honoring Dakota Project is dedicated to creating community engagements, projects, and events that provide education to discover our shared stories, bridge our communities, and create a space for healing.

In 2020, in the midst of the pandemic and racial reckoning happening in the United States, the conversation about the history of cultural genocide, land theft, Indigenous boarding schools, and the ongoing effects of these experiences was raised as an issue that needed addressing and healing among and between the people of Red Wing and Prairie Island. The project was developed out of the ongoing need to search for the wisdom and stories of the Dakotan people and acknowledge the Dakota as a vital member of the Red Wing community.These conversations spurred the official launching of the project, in partnership with the Prairie Island Indian Community, the City of Red Wing, Goodhue County Health and Human Service, and Red Wing Arts. The Indigenous led organization, Thrive Unltd, joined the efforts.  As facilitators and artists, Jeremy Fields and Collins Provost, helped facilitate community engagements and translated these experiences into the concept of the mural which would be created and prominently located near He Mni Can (“Barn Bluff’).  A year-long process of community conversations and events provided education to discover shared stories, bridge the communities, and create a space for healing, which was the basis of the community-informed creation of the mural.  The mural was a gift to the Prairie Island Indian Community on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, October 2023.The method of this project’s collaborative work proved to be unique and groundbreaking.  With support from the community and partnering organizations, the project continued beyond the original vision of gifting the mural.

“In the beginning, we all came together to bring a mural to the Red Wing landscape that would create space and honor the Dakota Indigenous relatives of the area. As we began unraveling the context and purpose of the mural, we realized collectively, the importance of relationship and the necessity of community. This project has come to embody shared experiences, family and tribal lineages, collective healing and much more. It has grown far beyond brush strokes and paint. We are creating a community legacy, of which the effects will continue to ripple for generations to come.— Jeremy Fields - Thrive Unlimited