ARTS:
In 2005 the AIC reorganized all the programs into 4 main areas: Arts, Education, Wellness, and Direction. The Arts area focuses on providing the opportunity for first voice American Indian representation. American Indian artists seldom have the opportunity to be involved with the manner in which their art is represented to the general public. The AIC offers a grand space community art development at the main AIC site and at the new Trickster Gallery located in Schaumburg, Illinois. AIC Arts programming includes the following: Trickster Gallery, 50 Years of Powwow exhibit.

Trickster Gallery
Trickster Gallery is the only Native operated arts institution in the State of Illinois and is dedicated to providing space for first-voice arts. Trickster Gallery will feature contemporary Native art (post 1960s) and augment exhibits with film screenings, featured speakers, panel discussions, school tours and educator workshops.

Program Highlights:

During Trickster’s first year, over 1,500 individuals visited the gallery.The gallery has hosted 6 exhibits during the first year including:

• Dissipating Indians, Reflections on Native Iconoclams, a multimedia exhibit curated by Dave Spencer featured work of Winston Howard (Dine’), Erica Lord (Athabaskan/Inupiaq), Mike Marin (Dine’/Laguna Pueblo/Washo/Mexican), Chris Pappan (Osage/Lakota), Ernest M. Whiteman III (Northern Arapaho), Debbie Yeppa-Pappen (Jemez Pueblo).
• 50 Years of Powwow photo exhibit commemorating the AIC’s first 50 powwows. The exhibit was designed by the AIC and developed in conjunction with The Field Museum. It has traveled throughout the state of Illinois. Pictures from the exhibit were included in Shades of America, Chicago’s 50 Years of Powwow released by Arcadia Publishing.
• Beauty Before Me, Beauty All Around Me artwork by Joe Yazzie (Dine’)
• Native Women’s Visions: Honoring Community though Art by Native American Women’s Artist Guild
• Thoughts and Opinions by Robert Wapahi (Lakota)
• Okee-Chee and Yazzie: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow in Native Arts artwork by Sharon Skolnick (Apache) and Joe Yazzie.
• The Field Museum is interested in traveling the 50 Years of Powwow photo exhibit internationally.

Powwow
The powwow is a center piece of contemporary American Indian culture that thrives in Chicago, featuring regalia-making, drumming, singing and dancing. The AIC hosts a year-long calendar of powwows, ranging from small celebrations for birthdays or special events, to regular holiday powwows, to the large-scale three-day Annual Chicago Powwow held in November every year since 1953. Powwows are both a social gathering place for the American Indian community and an educational opportunity to share diverse American Indian traditions and culture with spectators and visitors of all ethnic backgrounds.

Arts Programming
Native Arts Access is a series of arts workshops for community youth. The first workshop includes working together with family members to create a hand drum. The American Indian Center has worked with many local and state museums to bring contemporary images of the powwow to various communities in the “50 Years of Powwow” photo exhibit. The American Indian Center is also a part of the “Our Lives” exhibit at the newly opened National Museum of the American Indian of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC.