Indigenous voices ignite Museum Nights at the Harn Museum, reclaiming presence and history

10 October 2025

Mario Mutis, right, an Indigenous artist and teacher at Santa Fe College, helps an attendee in an art demonstration. (Nicolette De Value/WUFT News)

On the evening of October 9, the Harn Museum of Art in Gainesville hosted a bold celebration titled Museum Nights: Celebrating Indigenous People’s Week, inviting the public to step into a vibrant intersection of art, culture, and community that declared in no uncertain terms: Indigenous peoples remain here, speaking, dancing, creating.

The museum’s rotunda filled with anticipation and energy as participants gathered to watch drum and dance exhibitions performed by three generations of the Whitehorse family. Between performances, Duane Whitehorse from the Kiowa tribe spoke with steady authority, weaving stories of Indigenous contributions and cultural survival into his introductions. He noted that Native Americans invented everyday tools and technologies baby bottles, pain relief formulations, sunscreens reminding the crowd that Indigenous innovation is often invisible but foundational.

Yet the evening was not just spectacle. In a beading workshop led by Yona Ovdiyenko, vice president of the Gator Chapter of the American Indian Science and Engineering Society, attendees learned more than technique they encountered lineage, identity, and reclamation. Ovdiyenko spoke in measured tone about how many hold a picture of Indigenous people as relics or spirits of a past, but her message was anchored in reality: “We’re still here.” Raised in South Florida, she wrestled with dislocation and the quietness of Indigenous communities in urban landscapes, and through beading sought a connection back to her Eastern Cherokee and Crimean Tatar roots.

Over 100 people circled together later in a round dance called the Circle of Friendship a ritual meant to dissolve barriers and invite shared movement, hands linked as one communal breath. Duane Whitehorse guided participants through steps, saying the dance was more than performance. The rhythms echo prayer. The songs ground memory. The motion reclaims space. “We came here to dance,” he told the assembled, “but I want you to see we did much more than that.”

Maria Whitehorse, Duane’s wife, also joined in, though she was seated due to a broken leg. From her chair she held up her presence as testament. She spoke of Taino heritage, tribal identity, and the misconceptions she faces when people conflate all Indigenous nations into one. She reminded listeners that even when beliefs or deities align, the ways tribes pray, live, imagine differ. The lecture of heritage was as intimate as the drumbeat.

Interactive elements also animated the evening. University of Florida students rolled colorful rocks in Mamantuhwin, an Indigenous game based on turn-taking and communal chance. Some attended without prior knowledge; others found in the game a playful invitation to see culture beyond books. Many said they wished for more events like this to step beyond awareness into embodiment.

Museum Nights at the Harn was not only an event; it was a reclamation. It challenged the single story of Indigenous erasure and instead offered a tapestry of voices, movement, and presence. In a city where Indigenous history is often overshadowed, the evening reminded audiences that heritage is not contained in relics it lives, it adapts, and it demands witnessing.