“Some tribes don’t have a written language of their own,” he said. “That really helps you understand what an incredible and important thing that Sequoyah did in creating the Cherokee syllabary.”

Martin added that another impetus for creating this exhibit was to showcase the wealth of talent among Oklahoma Indigenous artists.

“That’s one of the big reasons why Tony and I got into curating shows and why we keep doing them,” he said. “There is no shortage of great artists making strong work on serious, timely topics in this state.”

Cherokee artist Roy Boney Jr., manager of the Cherokee Nation’s language translation team, wrote the exhibit’s statement, which will be displayed in English, as well as several Indigenous languages.

“We told him to write something that would give the art historians something to read,” Tiger said, laughing. “And Roy came up with the idea that each paragraph of the statement would end with a different tribe’s word for ‘speak.’ That paragraph would then be translated into that particular language — Cherokee, Muscogee Creek, Sac and Fox, Algonquin, Chickasaw and so on — and displayed together.”

Boney said, “One of the reasons why this exhibit is unique is that almost all of the artists included in the show are active in their tribe’s language — they are native speakers, or they are learning as a second language, or they are involved in their tribe’s language program.