Native American Street Art as Acts of Visual Sovereignty

Native American street art serves as a form of resistance to the dominant colonial culture, which has historically silenced and marginalized Indigenous voices. By creating murals, posters, and other forms of street art, Indigenous artists such as Votan Henriquez, Wild Life, and Jaque Fragua are taking control of public spaces and using them to communicate their own perspectives, experiences, and histories. In addition to resisting colonialism, indigenous street art is also a form of cultural revitalization and preservation. For instance, during the pandemic, the Native arts collective, NSRGNTS, created a Mask-up campaign for the Navajo Nation, and also aligned themselves with the contemporary civil rights movement to bring attention to indigenous inequities. As this paper will show, both on-and-off the reservation, Native-produced street art is a powerful form of visual sovereignty that allows Indigenous artists to reclaim public spaces, assert their cultural identities, and promote cultural revitalization.