The Eiteljorg Museum is gearing up for one of the biggest Native American art markets in the country.
Presented by the Indiana Soybean Alliance, the 32nd annual Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival returns to Downtown Indianapolis June 22-23. Featuring more than 150 Native artists from across the United States and Canada, the festival will host vendors showing and selling food and goods and art creations such as jewelry, pottery, basketry, sculptures, weavings and paintings.
“Whether you are a longtime market-goer or a first-time visitor, the Eiteljorg’s Indian Market and Festival is the place for amazing experiences where you can shop for exceptional Native art such as jewelry, get to know the artists, enjoy music and dance performances and broaden your cultural horizons,” Kathryn Haigh, Eiteljorg President and CEO, said in a statement. “Typically drawing thousands of people, the market is one of the Eiteljorg Museum’s biggest events all year and is known for its incredible Hoosier hospitality toward artists and guests alike.”
As one of Indianapolis’s biggest multicultural events of the summer, the Indian Market and Festival is host to artist booths both inside the museum and across the grounds outside — many of which return year after year. This year, however, will feature 40 new artists who are showcasing at the Eiteljorg for the first time.
In addition to art, the Festival and Market will include live performances from Gabriel Ayala (Pascua Yaqui) and Perry Ground (Onondaga Nation of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Turtle Clan) on the stage in the museum’s courtyard under The Sails on the Downtown Canal.
There will be music and dance performances from the Hawaiian quartet Hoapili and Indy Hula, Sihasin (Diné [Navajo]), and Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project — who will perform in their Ojibwe jingle dresses to spread awareness about the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
The market will also include multiple food vendors, including frybread, on hand as well as an Eiteljorg Cafe booth, and art activities for kids in the Nina Mason Pulliam Education Center.
The 32nd Eiteljorg Indian Market and Festival takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.at the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, 500 W. Washington St.
Tickets for the market are $20 online and $25 at the gate. Admission is free for children 17 and under. Admission to the market also includes the museum and all current exhibitions. For more information, discount and advance tickets, visit eiteljorg.org/indian-market-and-festival.
