The Weisman presents ‘Merciless’: Indigenous Lands Since 1776, an exhibition of new works commemorating and celebrating Indigenous resistance

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The Weisman presents ‘Merciless’: Indigenous Lands Since 1776, an exhibition of new works commemorating and celebrating Indigenous resistance

September 9, 2026

Floral and Ho-Chunk symbolism as graphic identity for the exhibition

Graphic detail designed by Savannah Berlyn (Ho-Chunk) for Weisman Art Museum

The Weisman is pleased to announce the upcoming opening of ‘Merciless’: Indigenous Lands Since 1776—on view from September 26, 2026 - May 16, 2027—organized by Weisman Art Museum and curated by WAM Ihlenfeld Curator of Collaborative and Community Exhibitions, Dr. Kendra Greendeer.

An opening festival on Saturday, September 26 will extend the exhibition into a communal gathering, with a Native vendor fair, participatory art-making demos, curator- and artist-led tours through the exhibition, Trickster Tacos on-site, and live performances by musician Keith Secola and friends. Admission to the exhibition and opening festival is free and open to everyone.

Curator Kendra Greendeer says, “We want visitors to have the opportunity to experience some of the range of Indigenous connections to this place.” She says, “As they move through the installations, visitors will have a chance to experience three distinct lenses, from three very different artists, each with their own personal and shared connections to the land, water and people here.”

Through various media, each artistic contribution aims to manifest the “unseen” within the public sphere, integrating spiritual entities and traditional teachings, and bridging the celestial and terrestrial worlds of Indigenous oral histories. This exhibition, featuring both indoor and outdoor installations, emphasizes Indigenous resilience and an enduring bond with this place known as Bde Óta Othúŋwe, or Minneapolis. The featured artists—Natchez Beaulieu (Anishinaabekwe from the White Earth Nation), Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota, Mohegan and Muscogee), and Missy Whiteman (Northern Arapahoe and Kickapoo)—critically re-examine an immutable Indigenous history.

The exhibition includes three original installations, including sculpture, augmented reality, virtual reality, video, and mosaic. Natchez Beaulieu has created a monument, a sculptural public artwork on the museum’s river-facing lawn that is at once land art, a bench to sit and watch the currents of the Mississippi, a gathering place, and a site of grounding at the river and soil. Marlena Myles’s augmented reality-enhanced work plays in the landscape outside as well, in conversation with Beaulieu’s monumental work on the lawn. Featuring cut stainless steel, marked with celestial and plant designs, Myles weaves the piece’s augmented reality elements throughout, capturing Dakota ancestral images reflective of both cosmic and plant relatives. Missy Whiteman’s immersive installation of video and sculpture is situated in the Weisman’s Carlson Gallery, where she has created an experiential site of personal, familial, and celestial histories.

The exhibition’s title derives from the section of the Declaration of Independence regarding Indigenous populations, which states: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

In response, ‘Merciless’ provides a reflective space to acknowledge this history, spanning from the United States’ adoption of the Declaration to the subsequent erosion of liberties for both the land and its original people. Throughout the preceding 250 years, Indigenous communities have demonstrated remarkable persistence. These artistic acts of resilience are intended to fortify their ongoing connection to the land well beyond the semiquincentennial.

Special thanks to the KHR McNeely Family Foundation, Kevin, Rosemary, and Hannah Rose McNeely, for their support of ‘Merciless’: Indigenous Lands Since 1776. This project is also supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts and The University of Minnesota Imagine Fund. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through an Art Experiences grant and an Operating Support grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. Additional general operating support is generously provided by Ameriprise Financial.

About the Artist

Natchez Beaulieu

Natchez Beaulieu, Waabigwanikwe (Flower Woman), is an Anishinaabekwe from the White Earth Nation, born and raised in South Minneapolis. She is a full-time artist, teaching art and working on commissioned projects in her community. Her art journey began with mural making through a group called Neighborhood Safe Art. During her summers in high school, she learned under Marilyn Lindstrom’s mentorship, creating many outdoor acrylic murals throughout the Twin Cities. Recently, she’s been focused on mosaics to showcase her Ojibwe floral designs and Indigenous knowledge. In collaboration with organizations in the Native American Community, she has completed several projects, two of which are on the American Indian Cultural Corridor including the mosaic on the medicine garden at the Native American Community Clinic. Over two summers, she collaborated with the Good Space to engage Indigenous youth on a mosaic mural called Zoongidewin in the Little Earth Community. In 2017, she worked with students in the Osseo and Minneapolis Public Schools Indian Education programs, creating culturally significant art. During the summer of 2019, she was hired by the Minneapolis Institute of Arts to facilitate a youth mural project with ten young women for The Hearts Of Our People exhibition.

About the Artist

Marlena Myles

Marlena Myles, Spirit Lake Dakota, Mohegan, and Muscogee artist, is based in St. Paul, Minnesota. Myles’s practice centers on Indigenous history, language, and the inclusion of both within modernity. By suggesting a continued Dakota culture that is illustrated within the digital sphere, Myles is portraying Native people in a space that others do not expect to witness Indigenous people and in a particular medium–as modern people utilizing the same technologies. Some of her most recent work includes an augmented reality installation, Spirit Door, at the Franconia Sculpture Park and a community cradleboard project with Dakota County Library. She is also creating new work for the Weisman’s upcoming exhibition, Merciless: Indigenous Lands Since 1776, which will open in September 2026.

About the Artist

Missy Whiteman

Missy Whiteman (Northern Arapahoe and Kickapoo) is an Emmy-nominated writer, director, producer and multi-media artist. Missy understands her work to be a voice for her ancestors, their stories and ancestral wisdom. Her late father, Ernest Whiteman, influenced her work with the gift of artistic vision and practice of art as a ceremony.

Many of Missy’s films have screened on international, national and local venues such as Walker Art Center, National Geographic All Roads Festival and Bilabo Spain. Missy is a current recipient of the McKnight Fellowship for Media Arts, a Forecast Public Art Mid-Career grant and is the alumni of The Sundance Native Lab Fellowship and Jerome Fellowship for her short film project The Coyote Way: Going Back Home. Her current project, The Coyote Way X: Expanded Cinema is a multidimensional cinematic experience of The Coyote Way: Going Back Home short film intertwined with performance, live score, video mapping and 360/VR.