About the Artist
Maggie Thompson (Fond du Lac Ojibwe) was born and raised in Minneapolis. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Textiles at the Rhode Island School of Design in 2013. As a textile artist and designer she derives her inspiration from the history of her Ojibwe heritage, exploring family history as well as themes and subject matter of the broader Native American experience. Thompson’s work calls attention to its materiality pushing the viewer’s traditional understanding of textiles. She explores materials in her work by incorporating multimedia elements such as photographs, beer caps, and 3D-printed objects. In addition to her fine arts practice, Thompson runs a small knitwear business known as Makwa Studio and is also an emerging curator of contemporary Native art.

About the Artwork
Bound Identity: "Institutions are in need of systematic transformation
in how they choose to interact and represent Native people. There is often an
expectation of what “Natives” or “Native art” looks like. This piece shows two
young girls bound to gallery pedestals being displayed at the Walker Art Center.
As the crowd walks around them they can see that their hair is braided and that
they are wearing ribbon shawls making them easily identifiable as being “Native”.
Meanwhile they are also wearing headphones and are simply watching a movie, gently reminding the audience that they too, exist within the contemporary realm"