Adrienne Benjamin | Amikogaabawiikwe

Adrienne M. Benjamin, or Amikogaabawiikwe, (She/Her/Hers) is an Anishinaabe multi-faceted artist, equity advocate, and cultural educator. She utilizes the lessons of her life mentors and community elders to create meaningful, current, socially relevant, and culturally significant work that intersects with her Anishinaabe values, history, and life ways.

She is a cultural artist first and foremost, creating jingle dresses and an array of other regalia and garments in Anishinaabe style. She is known for her work as the Reconciliation Advisor for Minnetonka Moccasins and has led their efforts to better relations and right wrongs of the past with Native people through public relations, art, and action. She has also worked with and educated other US companies on best practices for Native art and business. Adrienne is passionate about and vibrantly champions social justice and equity initiatives in the arts and education systems in her local community of Mille Lacs, statewide in Minnesota, and beyond. Adrienne is also an accomplished arts administrator, having created and lobbied two successful arts and language based youth initiatives within her tribe; the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe.

It is an absolute honor to be a Taproot Fellow. When I think of those who have inspired me and been so vital to the continuation of our cultural life-ways in community, they were elders and knowledge keepers, and people who deeply cared about the survival of our heritage. To be considered for this means that I am continuing the work that those elders entrusted me to do and truly believing in myself the way they believed in me.