Monroe Gallery Participates In Second Fall Of Freedom National Call For Creative Resistance

 

Monroe Gallery of Photography joins Fall Of Freedom with an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping the nation. On October 2,3, and 4 2026, plan to visit the exhibition Eugene Tapahe: ART HEALS, The Jingle Dress Project and Standing Rock Movement.

Additionally, in solidarity with of Fall Of Freedom, Monroe Gallery presents a Pop Up exhibition online of photographs documenting people struggling for their freedom; their right to live without fear, their right to speak and the right to protest inequities.

Tapahe documented the strength, unity, inspiration, resilience, and hope of the Indigenous-led movement that began in April 2016 to block the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline on the Standing Rock reservation in North Dakota.  He remembers the grace and courage of Jingle Dress dancers healing the trauma inflicted on the water protectors from  police and private security forces by water cannons, LRAD sound cannons, rubber bullets, pepper spray, mace, tear gas canisters and bean bag blasts. 

When asked “Why did you go to the Oceti Sakawin camp?”, Tapahe says “It was my responsibly to be there, to help our people, our ancestors, our water, and our land. It felt as if our ancestors were physically standing with us in unity around the sacred fire – singing and dancing with us. The spiritual awakening will be with me always as I continue my creative journey to photograph and document the beauty of Mother Earth and our people.”

Years later, Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project originated from a dream Tapahe had inspiring him to unite the land and people through the healing power of the Ojibwe jingle dress dance. The Jingle Dress Project has raised awareness of many Native American issues, such as land acknowledgment, women’s rights, and, most importantly, the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).  

Eugene Tapahe

Strength In Unity, Tetons National Park, the native land of the Shoshone, Bannock, Gros Ventre, and Nez Perce People, 2021

Fall Of Freedom is an urgent call to the arts community to unite in defiance of authoritarian forces sweeping our nation. Our Democracy is under attack. Threats to free expression are rising. Dissent is being criminalized. Institutions and media have been recast as mouthpieces of propaganda.

Fall of Freedom returns for its second year — expanding the national call to creative resistance. FoF is an open instigation to artists, venues and institutions across all disciplines to put your work in the world on October 2nd, 3rd, & 4th, countering fascist repression and censorship with joyful communities of defiant creativity. Art matters. Courage is contagious.

National list of events.

Due process gutted. Universities threatened and defunded. Students kidnapped. Migrants deported. Troops deployed. Racism rampant. Cruelty celebrated. Political leaders arrested. Citizenship stripped. Health care shredded. Women's rights rescinded. Wealth concentrated. Free speech eliminated. Genocide normalized. Science undermined. Arts assaulted. Journalism targeted. Departments shuttered. Grants rescinded. Trans banned. Lawyers capitulating. Coup makers pardoned. Budgets slashed. Abortion outlawed. Courts stacked. Boards replaced. Police unleashed. Nazis emboldened. Bombs dropped.

This is why we must resist.

Eugene Tapahe Exhibit Highlighted in Pasatiempo "Fall arrives with a full slate of new exhibitions across The City Different"

 Fall arrives with a full slate of new exhibitions across The City Different

By Ania Hull

September 18, 2026

Eugene Tapahe (Diné) had a dream as the pandemic unfolded: He was sitting in a field of grass in Yellowstone National Park, watching bison, when he heard the sound of jingles. Then, jingle-dress dancers began appearing in front of him.

“It’s as if they were dancing with the bison to the rhythm of a silent drum,” Tapahe writes on the Navajo Strong website. “It was beautiful and peaceful.”

The jingle dress was used by the Ojibwe people to help cure the afflicted. Over the years, it has become a pan-Native American symbol of strength and resistance to Indigenous people outside the Ojibwe nation.

Together with his family and friends, Tapahe, a photographer and multimedia artist who often brings his work to the SWAIA Indian Market, decided to act on that dream.

He and his relatives formed the Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project (see “Saved by the Bells,” August 15, 2025). Photographs from the project are on exhibit through November 1 at the Monroe Gallery of Photography. Added to the exhibition are photographs that Tapahe took at the Standing Rock pipeline protests in 2016 and during demonstrations in Minneapolis this past winter.

Eugene Tapahe

Jingle Dress Dance, Standing Rock Camp (Highway 1806), ND, Native land of the Dakȟóta and Lakȟótiyapi people, 2016

Many of Tapahe’s photos show three or four Indigenous women in regalia wearing skirts or dresses with jingles. They pose in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.; in front of a temporary “Indianland” sign at Desert X, outside Palm Springs, California; in tall grasses at Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming; in Monument Valley, Arizona; and at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

The colors the jingle dancers wear, especially the red masks, speak to the many social and political issues faced by the Indigenous people of Turtle Island, or North America, such as the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives crisis.

One of the photographs is titled Granite and Grace and portrays the four jingle dancers in black and white standing in tall grass in front of El Capitán in Yosemite National Park, with a forest between the women and the rock. This is the home, the photograph notes, of the Nyyhmy (Western Mono/Monache) people.

Monroe Gallery co-owner Sid Monroe says what strikes him about the photo is that it speaks to the erroneously white-centered documented history of the American West.

“You look at this photo and you think of the canon of American photography,” Monroe says. “Ansel Adams, especially, who is said to have ‘opened up the West’ to the world. But his photos and how they were received didn’t take into account the Native people who were already there, whose land this is.”

Tapahe’s exhibition is among dozens of shows across The City Different’s galleries and museums that have recently opened or are scheduled to open this fall.

Ania Hull: Beyond the beauty of Indian Market, deeper stories emerged

 

Via The Santa Fe New Mexican Pasatiempo

August 21, 2026

The 104th Indian Market broke me, but in a good way — in a way that only too much time in the sun and heat surrounded by so much beauty and so much storytelling you don’t know where to look and what story to hear next can.

There was also plenty of hurt under the surface. Plenty of stories that brought me back to reality and showed me so much beyond the gorgeous art displayed by almost 1,000 artists at the annual market...

After Indian Market was over, I had the opportunity to interview Sid Monroe, co-owner of the Monroe Gallery of Photography, and to visit the new exhibition of photographs by Eugene Tapahe (Diné), one of the artists who’s been a presence at Indian Market for some years now. The photographs show, among other things, scenes from Standing Rock and Minneapolis.

Sid and I discussed the lessons we — non-Indigenous, white people — should all learn from how Indigenous people come together to support each other, once again, as Indian Country. While this may be something new to us, to have to stand up to the government and to realize that we are being lied to, it’s not new for Indigenous people, nor to Black people, nor to other ethnic groups that have suffered so much we can’t even imagine what that means.

I’ll leave you with this, though: stand up for each other, especially for people who don’t have your privilege. I’ve written about it and will continue writing about it. -Ania Hull

  --full article

Diné Artists' Photos Will Be Shown at Prestigious Photography Show

 Via Native News Online

April 21, 2016

Eugene Tapahe

Togetherness, Sisters, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, Goshute and Timpanogos, 2023

Diné multi-media artist Eugene Tapahe’s striking homage to the jingle dress will be on display at the Association of International Photography Art Dealers’ (AIPAD) acclaimed exhibition, The Photography Show. The show runs from Wednesday, April 22, to April 26. Tapahe will be on site on Thursday, April 23, to meet patrons.

Photographs from Tapahe’s Art Heals: The Jingle Dress Project will be displayed among hundreds of featured collections and works from galleries and photographers around the globe.

The Jingle Dress Project was inspired by a dream Tapahe had during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project aims to bring the healing power of the jingle dress to places Native ancestors once walked.

Tapahe holds an MFA in Studio Art from Brigham Young University and has received numerous awards, including the Best of Show award for his photography at the Cherokee Indian Market (2018) and the Museum of Northern Arizona (2019).

For more information about the exhibition, click here.

Visit Monroe Gallery of Photography in Booth B10

Monroe Gallery At The 45th Edition Of The Photography Show Presented By AIPAD

Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to exhibit at the 45th edition of The Photography Show presented by AIPAD, returning to the Park Avenue Armory in New York City April 22 - 26, 2026.

Monroe Gallery will be located in booth B10, and are proud to present a distinctly curated exhibit, with a central focus on Diné (Navajo) photographer Eugene Tapahe’s “Jingle Dress Project”. “The Jingle Dress Project” brings global attention to Native American issues of land, water rights, women's issues, and the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women.

Another feature of the exhibit will be a selection of important contemporary photojournalism with a focus on American politics and the recent ICE enforcement crisis of militarization on communities.

The final highlight exhibit will be a special selection of Tony Vaccaro's iconic photographs of Art, Style, and Fashion.

Preview the exhibition here.

Tickets available here.

Show information:

April 22 - 26, 2026

Thursday, April 23

12:00pm – 8:00pm Public Hours

5:00pm – 8:00pm Collector Cultivation Evening

Friday, April 24

12:00pm – 7:00pm Public Hours

5:00pm – 7:00pm Night of Photography, presented with ICP

Saturday, April 25

12:00 pm – 7:00pm Public Hours

Sunday, April  26

11:00am – 5:00pm

Park Avenue Armory

643 Park Avenue

New York, NY 10065

Eugene Tapahe

Togetherness, Sisters, Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah, Goshute and Timpanogos, 2023

Ryan Vizzions

Faces of Fascism, Minneapolis, January, 2026

Tony Vaccaro

Givenchy by the Pool, South of Paris, France, 196