Here and Now: Art heals: Through The Jingle Dress Project, Navajo artist honors missing and murdered women

September 16, 2025 | Source: Monroe Gallery of Photography

 Via WBUR

September 16, 2025


black and white photograph of 4 Native American women in Jingle Dresses with red scarves and face masks standing in tall grass with snow-capped Teton mountains in backgrounf
Eugene Tapahe: Strength In Unity, Tetons National Park, the native land of the Shoshone, Bannock, Gros Ventre, and Nez Perce People, 2021


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Navajo artist and photographer Eugene Tapahe had a dream during the COVID-19 pandemic of women dancing in Yellowstone National Park in jingle dresses, traditional pow wow regalia. From that dream, he started The Jingle Dress Project, photographs of his daughters and two of their friends in various settings, as a gesture of healing and a way to bring attention to the issue of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

The exhibit is at the Monroe Gallery in Sante Fe, New Mexico, through September 28. Host Peter O'Dowd speaks with Tapahe and his daughter Dion Tapahe, who appears in the photographs.

color photograph of 3 Native American women in brightly colored Jingle Dresses with red face masks with blue sky in backgroundon the Salt Flats in Utah

This is a limited-edition image from the Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project photo series. This image was captured at the Salt Flats in Utah, native land of the Goshute people. (Courtesy of Eugene Tapahe)




Tags: J ingle Dress Project missing and murdered Indigenous women MMIW National Parks Native photography NPR photography exhibit Santa Fe

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