About — Manoomin Arts Initiative

Birch bark basket by Penny Kagigebi

The Manoomin Arts Initiative (MAI) is an Indigenous Artist-led creative community development organization that supports artists and cultivates the creative economy within the White Earth Nation and surrounding communities. We work with local artists and youth to create public art projects, collaborate with other community organizations to bring artist residencies, organize arts festivals, and support art workshops in our community. Our current work is to activate creative spaces where our artists can exhibit, create, teach, and sell their work.

MAI grew from a multi-year collaboration between the White Earth Nation (WEN), the City of Mahnomen, MN, and the Mahnomen County Economic Development Authority (MCEDA).

In 2017, The WEN’s Economic Development Division's Gizhiigin Arts Incubator, the City of Mahnomen, and the MCEDA collaborated on the Rainbow Theater Mural public art project. In 2021, the collaboration continued when Mahnomen received an Artist on Main Street grant. The Manoomin Arts Initiative (MAI) was created from that collaboration, and we established 501c3 status in the fall of 2024.

The word Manoomin was chosen to name our
organization, to represent the community we represent.

“Tribal elders tell legends about a time
more than a thousand years
ago when their prophets told
the people to travel west
from their ancestral homelands
on the Atlantic Coast to
“the land where food grows on water.”
That land was the wild rice country of
Minnesota, Wisconsin,
Michigan, Ontario, and Manitoba.”

-Anton Treuer, Author & Ojibwe Language Professor