Erin Genia (she/her), an enrolled member of the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate, is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and community organizer specializing in Native American and Indigenous arts and culture. Genia’s work in these areas is focused on amplifying the powerful presence of Indigenous peoples in the arts, sciences and public realm to invoke an evolution of thought and practice that is aligned with the cycles of the natural world and the potential of humanity.
Genia’s artistic practice merges Dakota cultural imperatives, pure expression, and exploration of materiality with the conceptual. Erin is fluent in multiple modes of expression: sculpture, fibers, sound, performance, digital media, writing, painting, printmaking, jewelry and ceramics.
Her work has received attention from diverse audiences, and has been exhibited nationally and internationally, at the Urbano Project in Boston, the Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica and the International Space Station.
Erin has an M.S. in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT, an M.P.A. in Tribal Governance from the Evergreen State College and studied at Institute of American Indian Arts. She was awarded the 2021 Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Grant from Mass Cultural Council, the 2019 MIT Solve Indigenous Communities Fellowship and the AAF Seebacher Prize for Fine Arts in 2018.
Erin’s public arts commissions include Boston University, the Minnesota Historical Society, the City of Saint Paul, and the City of Seattle. Genia lives and works in the greater Boston region, was a 2020 artist-in-residence for the City of Boston, and is a lecturer in the sculpture and performance department at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University.