Course

(re)Creating Turtle Island: Native American Design Through Remembered History

$120.00 - $300.00

MSRP:

Identify as BIPOC?

We offer our courses and classes at subsidized rates for students, educators, and BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) individuals.

If you are interested in a scholarship, please email us at [email protected] and we will help.

Interested in licensing for your institution? Learn more

Our fourth course is coming soon!! Join us for (re)Creating Turtle Island: Native American Design Through Remembered History. Classes will take place from mid-July through August. The classes in this course will revisit and rewrite a story of design history that centers on previously marginalized voices of Native American designers and creators.

We look forward to gathering together!

This course is facilitated by Brian Johnson and Polymode.

Each class below is an available to purchase individually, or at a discounted rate when the course pass is purchased.
Designed To Be Red: Notes on Native American and Indigenous Graphic Works – course promotional image
Let Us Put Our Minds Together, c. 1975 Awkesasne Notes, Poster House Permanent Collection

Designed To Be Red: Notes on Native American and Indigenous Graphic Works

with Brian Johnson

Free

New

Brian Johnson is locating, identifying, and archiving Native-made and designed printed posters, while also challenging conventional definitions of what a poster can be. This lecture explores Indigenous design art forms like wampum belts, beaded regalia, and painted hides as powerful...

Learn More
Painting Her Own Path: The Legacy of Angel De Cora – course promotional image
The Middle Five: Indian Boys at School Francis Le Flesche / Illustration by Angel de Cora, c. 1900

Painting Her Own Path: The Legacy of Angel De Cora

with Yvonne Tiger

New

Yvonne Tiger explores the life and lasting impact of Angel De Cora (Hinook-Mahiwi-Kalinaka), a Ho-Chunk artist, designer, writer, and educator who helped shape the foundations of Native American visual culture. Through her illustrations, typography, and teaching, De Cora blended Western...

Learn More
Mary Sully’s Practice of Native Design: Tradition, Crisis, Futurity – course promotional image
Fred Astaire Personality Print by Mary Sully, Date Unknown

Mary Sully’s Practice of Native Design: Tradition, Crisis, Futurity

with Philip J. Deloria

New

Historian Philip Deloria offers a deeply personal and detailed exploration of Mary Sully’s innovative personality prints—her striking three-panel pieces. He discusses her unique creative process and shares his journey to bring her art to a wider audience. Deloria highlights how...

Learn More
Reinventing the Indigenous Graphic Design Canon: No Printing Press Needed – course promotional image
Indigenous Peoples Day 2016 by Sadie Red Wing, c. 2016

Reinventing the Indigenous Graphic Design Canon: No Printing Press Needed

with Sadie Red Wing

New

Sadie Red Wing delves into the complex semiotics and deeper meanings embedded in Indigenous graphic design. She discusses how the nomadic lifestyles of many Indigenous peoples meant printing presses were not practical, which contributed to Indigenous voices being excluded from...

Learn More
Printing, Sovereignty, and Protest – course promotional image
Jimmy Dean Horn posing with models at Native Fashion Week, photo by Caroline Miller, c. 2025

Printing, Sovereignty, and Protest

with Jimmy Dean Horn

New

Jimmy Dean Horn is a multidisciplinary artist and designer whose work lives at the intersection of print, protest, and personal story. What began as a deep love for printmaking has grown into a broader design practice—one that now spans clothing,...

Learn More
Tracing the Footsteps and Protests of Anthony Martin Fernando: Global Indigenous Activist – course promotional image
Pamphlet by Anthony Martin Fernando, photo by Gloria Jane Bell

Tracing the Footsteps and Protests of Anthony Martin Fernando: Global Indigenous Activist

with Gloria Jane Bell

New

Gloria Jane Bell’s is exploring the extraordinary life and resistance of Anthony Martin Fernando, an early Aboriginal Australian who protested global injustices faced by Indigenous peoples throughout the early 20th century. Through archival research and visual culture, Bell traces Fernando’s...

Learn More
Supporting and Strengthening Native Typography – course promotional image
Domestic Spirit Animal by Leo Vicenti

Supporting and Strengthening Native Typography

with Chris Skillern Leo Vicenti Kevin King

New

In this collaborative session, Kevin King, Leo Vicenti, and Chris Skillern explore the vital role of typography in Indigenous language and visual sovereignty. Through individual talks, they examine typography from technical, cultural, and creative lenses—ranging from the specific challenges of...

Learn More
Innovation As Tradition: The Art and Design of Wabanaki Ash and Sweetgrass Basketry – course promotional image
Basket by Sarah Sockbeson

Innovation As Tradition: The Art and Design of Wabanaki Ash and Sweetgrass Basketry

with Sarah Sockbeson

New

Sarah Sockbeson offers a powerful look into the design, materials, and meaning behind  Wabanaki ash and sweetgrass basketry. Sharing her experience apprenticing with master weaver Jennifer Neptune, Sockbeson discusses the patterns and processes that ground her work in tradition while...

Learn More
New Red Order: Signs of Savage Philosophy in Action – course promotional image
New Red Order, Dexter and Sinister, 2023. Installation in the exhibition SURVIVAL IN THE 21st CENTURY at the Deichtorhallen Hamburg. Photo: Henning Rogge

New Red Order: Signs of Savage Philosophy in Action

with New Red Order

New

Due to unforeseen circumstances, this lecture has been postponed. New Red Order delves into the provocative and evolving work of New Red Order (NRO), a public secret society of Native artists and collaborators who use humor, media, and performance to...

Learn More
Irrational Indigenous Insights – course promotional image
Anna Tsouhlarakis, The Native Guide Project: CMBG, detail, 2024, Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, granite, oyster shells, dirt, sod, dimensions variable.

Irrational Indigenous Insights

with Anna Tsouhlarakis

New

Anna Tsouhlarakis, a member of the Navajo Nation with Creek and Greek descent, will present her lecture Irrational Indigenous Insights, an exploration of language, perception, and the complexity of Indigenous identity. Through her work words take on many facets of...

Learn More

Credit

  • Curriculum Design
    Brian Johnson
  • Instructional Design
    Brian Johnson
  • Course Marketing and Operations
    Brian Johnson, Silas Munro, Randa Hadi, Kris Nuzzi, Tanvi Sharma and Emma Waggoner
  • Production
    Brian Johnson, Silas Munro, Randa Hadi, Kris Nuzzi, Tanvi Sharma and Emma Waggoner
  • Teaching Assistant
    Emma Waggoner
  • Typeface Desgin
    Giboula by Future Fonts

Licenses for institutional use are available and customizable to fit your needs. Contact us at [email protected] to provide your students, employees, and designers with access to our BIPOC Design History Course.

Learn More About Licensing