Site Memory, Recollecting Resistance and Returning Home

Yatika Starr Fields is a painter and multidisciplinary artist who draws from world travels and his Osage, Cherokee, and Muscogee Creek knowledge bases to create murals that bring cultural histories into the present. In his process, Fields attunes himself to each site with great sensitivity through research and aesthetic interpretation. For Counterpublic 2026, Fields created a large-scale visual marker at the burial site of Chief Pontiac, or Ogimaa Obwandiyag. Pontiac represents unity in Indigenous struggle as a decorated military leader who fought against settler colonialism. Between 1762 and 1766, he united thousands of Indigenous warriors in opposition to British land theft and westward expansion.

Courtesy of the Garth Greenan Gallery.

This commission is made possible with the support of the Walker Youngbird Foundation.