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The Great Plains Art Museum is open late on First Friday, Sept. 5, 5-7 p.m. with three exhibitions and light refreshments.On View:
“Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land”
First-Floor Galleries
September 5–December 20, 2025
Twenty-five Otoe-Missouria artists, ranging from traditional to contemporary and working in any medium, were selected to co-create an art exhibition reflecting on healing, reconciliation, and reconnecting to the land. "Reflections of Our People" is a key part of the new Mellon-funded initiative “Walking in the Footsteps of our Ancestors: Re-Indigenizing Southeast Nebraska.” The initiative, a partnership between the Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma and the Center for Great Plains Studies, aims to promote healing and reconciliation in our region by reconnecting the Otoe-Missouria Tribe to one of their homelands in southeast Nebraska and educating non-Native people about the history and ongoing presence of the Otoe-Missouria and other Indigenous peoples in our region.
This will be the first exhibition to center Otoe-Missouria artists and their creative work. Jessica Moore Harjo, Ph.D. (Otoe-Missouria/Osage/Pawnee), is the curatorial director for this exhibition.
“Big Blue Reservation: Struggles and Hope of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe”
September 5–December 20, 2025
Mezzanine Gallery
One hundred seventy years ago, the Treaty of 1854 was passed by Congress, authorizing the move of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe to the Big Blue Reservation in Gage County, Nebraska. The Tribe watched as acre by acre of their land was sold off by the government and treaties were broken. In 1881, the Tribe was moved from this reservation to Red Rock, Oklahoma.
The Gage County Historical Society, along with the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, arranged a summer exhibit in 2024 to educate the public about this important part of American history. The Otoe-Missouria Tribe once called Southeast Nebraska home. Through the displacement of the people during the 1800s, they lost sacred traditions. This exhibit includes their voices of how that loss affected them into the present.
The Tribe and the Society wanted this exhibit to travel to other institutions to provide a cultural history of Nebraska, utilizing the Tribe’s perspective. As a result of this hard work, the Gage County Historical Society’s traveling exhibit will open in the Great Plains Art Museum’s mezzanine gallery on Sept. 5, 2025. This exhibit is on view in conjunction with “Reflections of Our People, Our Ways, Our Land.”
“Watershed: Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Amanda Maciuba”
April 4–September 20, 2025
Lower-Level Gallery
Maciuba’s work is an exploration of the visible and invisible marks of human hands on the landscape. Her practice investigates human relationships with the environment over time, forefronting the impacts of human-driven climate change. She exposes and reconsiders the layered histories of specific locations: from the geologic forces that shaped the land, to impacts of Western colonialism, to the current practices of development, destruction, and restoration by the local communities she interacts with every day. Bodies of water often act as anchors for Maciuba’s creative investigation. “Watershed” is an exhibition of prints, artist’s books, and installations that consider how water shapes human life and how our actions impact river environments in return.
The Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St., is open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free.
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
1155 Q St, Lincoln, NE, United States, Nebraska 68508
