Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project, an exhibition coinciding with Santa Fe Indian Market
August 8, 2025 | Source: Monroe Gallery of Photography
August 8, 2025
Dress Dream
The inspiration for Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project, an exhibition coinciding with Santa Fe Indian Market that’s showing at Monroe Gallery of Photography, can be traced to a dream that artist Eugene Tapahe (Diné) experienced during the pandemic.
The dream featured the Ojibwe jingle dress dance, an Indigenous dance with roots in healing and spiritual practices — which resonated with Tapahe during a time of widespread illness and social upheaval. Tapahe since has traveled thousands of miles photographing or taking videos of family members and friends performing the dance, documenting a striking combination of brightly colored dance garb and sweeping natural backdrops at national parks and monuments.
A reception is 5-7 p.m. Thursday, August 14, and at 5:30 p.m. Tapahe will discuss the work and preview a documentary he’s developing. Originally from Window Rock, Arizona, he has won awards including best of show in 2018 at the Cherokee Indian Market in Tulsa, Oklahoma. — B.S.
Note: Tapahe talk will be available on Zoom, register here.