Funding
Support for Ioway: Here to Stay, the online exhibition, and associated programming was provided by the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities Sustaining the Humanities through the American Rescue Plan.
Funding to travel the exhibition to the Atchison Cultural Center and support in-person workshops was provided by a Kansas Creative Arts and Industries Commission’s New and Expanded Works Grant. Additional support for the Atchison showing and programming was provided by Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation.
Curators
Sydney Pursel
Sydney Pursel is an artist and curator. She currently serves as the first Curator for Public Practice at the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas. She previously worked as an intern at the Báxoje Wosgaci: Ioway Tribal Museum and Cultural Center, the Spencer Museum of Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in Washington D.C. and as a curatorial assistant at the Fruitlands Museum in Harvard, MA. Her research interests include:
collaborative, community-based, public, and socially engaged art
Indigenous art, culture, identity, and representation
disability art, accessibility, and multisensory learning
activism and social justice in contemporary art
At KU, she serves on the Native Faculty and Staff Council, the FNSA Powwow and Indigenous Cultures Festival Committee, and the Indigenous Arts Initiative program. She is an enrolled member of the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska (ITKN) where she serves on the Woshka (aka. Arts and Culture) Committee and Powwow Committee. Pursel is also a practicing artist. She received her MFA in Expanded Media from the University of Kansas in 2017 and her BFA in Painting from the University of Missouri in 2011. sydneypursel.com
Rebekka Schlichting
An enrolled member of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, Rebekka Schlichting is a filmmaker and owner of Native Storytelling Nation, LLC. In 2023, she directed, produced and wrote the documentary Seed Warriors, which will broadcast on Nebraska Stories and PBS Digital Studios on May 18. The world premiere was held at the world Indigenous Maoriland Film Festival in New Zealand, and it is playing at various festivals in the U.S.
Rebekka is also an assistant professor of the practice at the University of Kansas William Allen White School of Journalism and Mass Communications where she teaches writing, ethics, and a variety of video classes. She’s an adjunct for Nebraska Indian Community College where she teaches multimedia journalism. She co-directs the KU School of Journalism summer Native Storytelling Workshop for Native American high school students. She serves on the Lawrence Arts and Culture Commission, the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska Culture Committee and heads the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska Annual Powwow.
Rebekka served as the assistant director and interim director at Vision Maker Media where she managed, wrote and reviewed BIPOC film and multimedia grants, promoted Indigenous films and led filmmaker workshops and events. While at VMM, she was named “40 under 40” by the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development.
Before her professional documentary work, she was an adjunct professor and graduate teaching assistant at the University of Nebraska's College of Journalism and Mass Communications. As an adjunct at UNL, Rebekka co-taught ‘Wounds of Whiteclay’ and is a recipient of the 2017 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award. In 2019, she was inducted into the Hall of Fame Induction by the University of Nebraska Jackie Gaughan Multicultural Center. In graduate school, Rebekka directed the Sovereign Native Youth Leadership Academy at the Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs. During her undergraduate career at KU, Rebekka debuted two short documentaries at the Vision Maker Media Film Festival and won First and Second Place for “Best Feature Story” in TV/Online by NAJA in 2014.
Rebekka graduated from KNS in 2010.
Photographers
Brandon Jessip
Individual photos of artwork and installation shots from Atchison Cultural Center courtesy of Brandon Jessip.
Olivia Brien
Olivia Brien, Director of Communications
Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska
Photos from opening event at Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission Museum courtesy of Olivia Brien.
Collaborators
Mike Kelley
Mike Kelley, Director
Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission Museum
Deborah Geiger
Deborah Geiger, Executive Director
Atchison Art Association
Christy Harris
Christy Harris, Program Director
Atchison Art Association
Patty Boldridge
Patty Boldridge, Vice President of the Board
Atchison Art Association
Contractors
Hired to assist with installation and opening events at the Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission Museum
Claire Geiger
Daniel Meyer
Assisted with installation and constructing display cases at the Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission Museum
Collin Wells
Made display boxes for the Iowa and Sac & Fox Mission Museum