Minneapolis Indigenous Businesses, Art & Events
Check out the events, businesses, and restaurants where you can celebrate, support and remember the histories of those indigenous to this country.
Last Updated: 3/12/24
Food & Drink
Sioux Chef
Founded by Sean Sherman, CEO Chef, Sioux Chef is an indigenous kitchen. They are a team currently made up of Anishinaabe, Mdewakanton Dakota, Navajo, Northern Cheyenne, Oglala Lakota and Wahpeton-Sisseton Dakota. Their commitment to revitalizing Native American cuisine goes hand-in-hand with re-identifying North American cuisine and reclaiming an important culinary culture long buried and often inaccessible.
Owamni by the Sioux Chef
Decolonizing your dining experience, Owamni prioritizes purchasing ingredients from Indigenous food producers and have removed colonial ingredients from their menu, including wheat flour, cane sugar and dairy. They welcome you to experience the true flavors of North America, featuring foods of Mni Sota Makoce, Land Where the Waters Reflect the Clouds. The restaurant is located at OwamniYomni, the sacred site of peace and well-being for the Dakota and Anishinaabe people.
Located at: 420 1st St S
Indigenous Food Lab
The Indigenous Food Lab inside the Midtown Global Market is a professional Indigenous kitchen, training center, market and kitchen. Shop the market, which has everything from Red Lake Nation wild rice and frozen bison, to handmade beaded earrings and soaps made from native plants, then order something to eat! Indigenous Food Lab only uses foods indigenous to North America, so no flour, dairy, pork, chicken, white sugar, or anything brought by colonizers. Try the tacos, the Indigenous grain bowl, or čhoǧ íŋyapi, something like an open-faced corn sandwich.
Located at: 920 E Lake St, in the Midtown Global Market
Gatherings Café
Gatherings Café serves fresh, locally grown foods that are Indigenous and prepared in healthy ways. In the heart of the urban Native American community, their goal is to educate the greater community through ancestral knowledge and to promote decolonized diets to improve the health of the Native population that has been severely impacted by colonization and the resulting historical trauma.
Located at: 1530 E Franklin Ave, in the Minneapolis American Indian Center
*The Minneapolis American Indian Center will soon be undergoing a much needed renovation. Gatherings Cafe will be working out of the NELC (Little Earth Neighborhood Early Learning Center) kitchen and continue to feed the elders and Golden Eagles Youth Program.
Pow Wow Grounds
Pow Wow Grounds, located next to All My Relations Gallery, offers specialty coffee drinks, baked goods, smoothies, sandwiches and signature wild rice products.
Located at: 1414 E Franklin Ave
Native Food Perspectives
Native Food Perspectives utilizes traditional and seasonal flavors and recipes to prepare dishes with fresh ingredients and an emphasis on nutrition. Indigenous Food Chef aandakii gweki-biimaadazi, aka Christina, partners with and creates opportunities to teach individuals, schools, organizations, groups and families how to develop healthy food practices through Native cooking classes and menu planning.
Retail, Arts & Galleries
Birchbark Books
Good books, Native arts, jewelry, and community events. Owned by author Louise Erdrich, Birchbark Books is operated by a spirited collection of people who believe in the power of good writing, the beauty of handmade art, the strength of Native culture, and the importance of small and intimate bookstores.
Located at: 2115 W 21st St, Minneapolis
Two Rivers Gallery
Two Rivers Gallery is an active space for the community to build relationships and to collaborate strengthening Native art and artistic voices within the Twin Cities. Their mission is to expose local emerging Native artists by providing a space to exhibit work, nurture creativity and provide professional development.
Located at: 1530 E Franklin Ave, in the Minneapolis American Indian Center
*Hours are By Appointment Only
Woodland Indian Crafts
Browse a unique selection of handmade gifts by local artists at Woodland Indian Crafts. Find beadwork of all types, jewelry, native music and DVD movies, beading supplies, t-shirts, greeting cards and more.
Located at: 1530 E Franklin Ave, in the Minneapolis American Indian Center
Northland Visions: Native American Art and Fine Gifts
What began as Northland Native American Products has grown from a home-based, mail-order business into a gallery and retail space where one can find treasures of the land. Explore original items made by Native peoples from the Woodland and Plains tribes of the upper Midwest in what is now Minnesota, the Dakotas, Wisconsin, Canada and other northern states stretching from Montana to the east coast. Find dream catchers, earthen candles, books, sculptures, dance sticks, drums and blankets among a wide array of other products.
Located at: 861 E Hennepin Ave #130
All My Relations Gallery
All My Relations Arts honors and strengthens relationships between contemporary American Indian artists and the living influence of preceding generations, between artists and audiences of all ethnic backgrounds, and between art and the vitality of the Minneapolis American Indian Cultural Corridor.
Located at: 1414 E Franklin Ave
Okciyapi
Walker Art Center’s Minneapolis Sculpture Garden has a new installation by artist Angela Two Stars. Okciyapi is the first sculpture by an indigenous artist commissioned by the Walker for the sculpture garden. Meaning "help each other" in the Dakota language, Okciyapi was created as an homage to the Dakota people and their endangered but resilient language, and to all those who are working to ensure the language not only survives but thrives. The installation features rings of seating elements based on patterns of rippling water and symbolizing relationships between individuals and communities. Just as a drop of water creates ripples that flow across a lake, one speaker’s shared knowledge can spread to future generations.
Centers & Resources
American Indian Cultural Corridor
The only urban Native American corridor in the country, the American Indian Cultural Corridor is located along Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis, which exists in the traditional homelands of the Dakota people. This is an area that is welcoming the whole region to share in American Indian culture and commerce, as well as the other anchor businesses that are located in the Corridor, many of which are listed above and below.
Minneapolis American Indian Center
Home to the Two Rivers Gallery, Gatherings Café and Woodland Indian Crafts, the Minneapolis American Indian Center is one of the first urban American Indian Centers in the country, providing services otherwise often unavailable for urban American Indians. The Minneapolis American Indian Center was initially formed by community members and continues its roots today with majority American Indian leadership and staffing.
Located at: 1530 E Franklin Ave
Events & Exhibits
November 11, 2023 - May 27, 2024
Minneapolis Institute of Art
What happens when Native American and American art is seen together, rather than in separate places? Might we look at these artworks in a new way? What stories and connections emerge from this new way of being together?
These are some of the questions that guided a collaboratively reimagined suite of galleries. This Indigenous-led, consensus-based curatorial experiment is based on Dakota philosophies and ways of being. It includes thematic installations that center “place”, honor the living land, explore the power of relationality — the idea that we are all connected and build relationships based on this awareness – and ends with a reflection, inviting visitors to join us in imagining the future we wish to have. What does it look and feel like? How do we build it together?
Apr 11–12, 2024
Walker Art Center
In 1972, a group of Aboriginal activists planted an umbrella in the lawn across from the Australian Parliament in Canberra, proclaiming it the Aboriginal Tent Embassy. Acting in response to new legislation announced by then-Prime Minister William McMahon that severely curtailed land rights for Indigenous Australians, the establishment of this Aboriginal Tent Embassy would become one of the longest continual protests for Indigenous land rights in the world. Revisiting archival footage from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Still We Rise reflects deeply on the inciting moment and urgently reminds us of the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism and Indigenous rights and sovereignty. 2022, Australia, DCP, 57 min.
Thursday’s screening is followed by a conversation with John Harvey.
Feb 1, 2024–Apr 13, 2024
All My Relations Gallery
Okizi (To Heal) is a partner exhibition with the American Swedish Institute (ASI) in response to the traveling exhibition, Arctic Highways: Unbound Indigenous People. A common theme of these dual exhibitions is the healing impacts of cultural revitalization. While efforts were made to separate Native peoples from their spirituality, language, and cultural knowledge and traditions, Okizi highlights the revitalization efforts that reconnect this generation and future generations to our language, land, and culture as a means of healing from historical and generational trauma.
On view now
Minnesota History Center
Witness the resilience and strength of Minnesota’s Native communities through stories reframed by their own words, experiences, and perspectives. From a decades-old box of photographs simply labeled "Indians," came the idea for a powerful new exhibit. Now in the hands of Indigenous community members, those photos have new meaning.
On view now
Minnesota History Center
Explore the exhibit and learn about Minnesota's Native communities, including stories of survival, resistance, and resilience that offer hope for the future. Visitors can enjoy acoustic music with Mitch Walking Elk, hoop dance performances by the Sampson Brothers, demonstrations of birch-bark biting artwork with Denise Lajimodiere, and traditional games like kansu kutepi (dice game), tasiha (ring and pin) and cankawacipi (spinning tops) with Jeremy Red Eagle.
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum
Ongoing
Twin Cities Digital Artist Marlena Myles, a member of the Spirit Lake Dakota Tribe, has created an augmented reality art exhibition in partnership with the Arboretum, which begins in the Harrison Sculpture Garden. Visitors can use their mobile phones to download the Revlo AR app to view digital images and audio at stops along the walk to learn about Dakota culture and history.
April 25, 2024
5:00pm
Quincy Hall
Native Nations Fashion Night, "Messengers, Protectors & Great Mysteries" is an exciting event showcasing the beauty and creativity of Native American fashion. Join us at Quincy Hall, 1325 Quincy Street Northeast, Minneapolis, MN, USA for a night filled with stunning designs inspired by Native traditions and culture. Don't miss out on this unique opportunity to witness the fusion of tradition and modern style on the runway!
In the Indigenous belief systems, Spirits are everywhere. We honor and respect them in everyday life through prayer and ceremony. We give and never expect anything in return. We know the Manidoog are sending us messages,they are our protectors and we call them "great mysteries." This fashion show is centered around conveying creative ideas through intriguing textures, techniques, or embellishments that tell a story or convey a hidden message that invites interpretations of the mysterious.
