Seneca Art & Culture Center at Ganondagan:
MMIW

This button was designed collaboratively by Gabriele Papa, Victoria Alvarez, G. Peter Jemison. Gabriele Papa suggested the theme of the button Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW). This is a problem that haunts Native American and First Nations communities. Victoria Alvarez reviewed the early concepts for the Button and G. Peter Jemison created the art work using a Strawberry for the button design and he suggested a typeface. The wild Strawberry for Seneca people is a special gift, it is the first fruit of the each year, and it is considered a medicine. A ceremony is held to honor the Strawberry when it ripens.

Ganondagan State Historic Site located in Victor, NY is a National Historic Landmark, the only New York State Historic Site dedicated to a Native American theme (1987), and the only Seneca town developed and interpreted in the United States. Spanning 569 acres, Ganondagan (ga·NON·da·gan) is the original site of a 17^th century Seneca town, that existed there peacefully more than 350 years ago. The culture, art, agriculture, and government of the Seneca people influenced our modern understanding of equality, democratic government, women’s rights, ecology and natural foods.

Gabriele Papa is Hawk Clan and a member of the Seneca Nation of Indians. She is an interpreter at Ganondagan State Historic Site in Victor, NY. Victoria Alvarez is also an Interpreter at Ganondagan State Historic Site. G. Peter Jemison, a member of the Heron Clan of the Seneca Nation of Indians and is the Historic Site Manager of Ganondagan. Peter is an artist who is mainly a painter but he is also a filmmaker and a curator of contemporary Native American and First Nations art. His art work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, the British Museum, London, England, Denver Art Museum, Denver, Colorado, Heard Museum, Phoenix, Arizona, National Museum of the American Indian and the Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, NY.

Instagram: @ganondagan | Website: ganondagan.org