Amikogaabawiikwe indizhinikaaz. Adrienne Benjamin indigoo. Awaazisii indoodem. Misizaaga’iganing indoonjibaa. Chiminising indaa. Niizh nindaanisag indayaawag, Bagwajikwe naa Zhaawanigiizhigookwe.
Adrienne M. Benjamin (She/Her/Hers) is an Anishinaabe multi-faceted artist, equity advocate, and cultural educator. She utilizes her own vast life experiences as a special needs mother, GBS survivor, and as a modern day Indigenous woman to create meaningful, current, socially relevant, and culturally significant work that intersects with her Anishinaabe values, history, and life ways.
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 based youth initiatives within her tribe; the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Adrienne is also an avid art collector, invariably supporting Indigenous and BIPOC artists in the United States and beyond.
Professional Acknowledgements
2023-2024 Metropolitan Regional Arts Council Artists Futures Award Winner
Taproot Fellowship nominee — California Alliance for Traditional Arts
2022 MLCV Babaamizinikekwe Award (Entrepreneur of the Year)
2021 Waterer’s Future Building Award
2020 Citizen’s League Minnesota Civic Leader Honoree
2020 Creative Community Leadership Institute Fellow
2019 AFTA Leaders of Color Forum Selection
2019 Artworks Grantreader: National Endowment for the Arts
2018 NCAIED 40 under 40 Award Recipient
2018 Salzburg Global World Seminar 50 Young Cultural Innovators Selection
Class of 2018 University of Pennsylvania; Arts & Culture Strategy
2017 ArtWorks Grantreader: National Endowment for the Arts
2016-2017 National Arts Strategies Creative Community Fellow
Cohort 5 of the Native Nations Rebuilders Program,
Alumnus of the Blandin Foundation Reservation Community Leadership Program.
