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The Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas: A Celebration of Indigenous Creativity
ARTS ENGAGEMENT
Cipelahq Ehpicik (Thunder Women) Drum, Passamaquoddy, perform at the Dawnland Festival.
Photo credit: Nolan Altvater, Passamaquoddy
In Bar Harbor, just miles from the coast, sits the Abbe Museum, a pinnacle of decolonizing archival methods that center Indigenous heritage and culture. The 17,000-square-foot museum offers visitors a deeper understanding of Indigenous artistry, presenting both traditional and contemporary practices and illuminating the vast creativity of Wabanaki communities.
The museum’s Dawnland Festival of Arts and Ideas, now in its third year, brings hundreds of Indigenous and non-Native people from across New England together to celebrate Native art and history. This year’s festival combines regional art and the national stage through a partnership with the 2026 Of the People: Smithsonian Festival of Festivals initiative.
The Dawnland Festival is breaking ground as the Smithsonian’s only New England festival partner. And with a lineup of basketmakers, drummers, jewelry makers, storytellers, and other artists, this year’s festival is set to be bigger than ever.
Evolving the Traditional Market Experience
We hope to not only educate but activate our audiences.”
— Betsy Richards, Executive Director
For years, the Abbe Museum collaborated with the Maine Indian Basketmakers Alliance to offer a traditional market experience for visitors across Maine. When Betsy Richards became the Abbe’s executive director in 2022, she brought an ambitious goal of expanding that market to a full-scale festival that would help celebrate the Native creative economy.
“I wanted to create an arts and ideas festival where we could talk about the big issues of our time — the environment, democracy, art, technology, freedom, aging, education — from an Indigenous perspective,” says Richards.
Thus, the Dawnland Festival was born.
The festival combines the tradition of Indigenous arts markets with an examination of the worldviews infused in the art. It’s a vehicle for appreciating the diversity within Native communities and renouncing the idea that those communities are monolithic. Showcasing expressive and material culture, the festival sparks conversations and spurs deeper thinking about the relationship between the artists and their art.
“It’s important to understand the values behind the work — the weaver’s relationship with the wool, with the sheep, with the land,” says Richards. “It’s all part of understanding artists’ worldviews and artistic practices.”
Eldon Hanning, Mi'kmaq, shares his art with festival goers.
Photo credit: Nolan Altvater, Passamaquoddy
The 2026 Dawnland Festival
Art is central to who we are. You can’t separate Native art and Native values. This festival puts that at the forefront and resists that suppression in a very public, vocal, and community-building way.”
— Betsy Richards, Executive Director
Held in July at the College of the Atlantic, this year’s multiday festival will support nearly 60 artists in the main market and bring in everyone from museum curators to Maine residents to non-Native people who are eager to learn more about their Indigenous neighbors’ cultures.
The festival will also host four panel discussions that will put Native histories in conversation with the contemporary moment:
Wabanaki Waters
Panelists will dive into the wide range of activities influenced by water, such as fishing and canoeing. The discussion will look at water from a cultural perspective and explore how vital and sacred water sources are to Native communities.
Indigenous Military Veterans
This panel will highlight both how Indigenous people have engaged with military efforts and the support they need and deserve today.
“Native people have fought in every conflict in U.S. history,” says Richards. “This feels like the moment to talk about the complicated relationship that Wabanaki and other northeastern Native people have with our democracy — their wonderful service to our country and their struggle to be seen as fully human.”
Native Freedom of Expression
This panel comprises an artist, an educator, and a Native attorney who will discuss the fraught history of Indigenous freedom and the lack thereof.
“No Native people had freedom of religion until 1978,” says Richards. “There’s a history of this country suppressing Native American culture, and we need to understand the structure for freedom of speech, expression, and religion.”
Indigenous Photography
A Shinnecock photographer will join this panel to share their art and put it in the context of a history of Indigenous oppression. “We’ve had our photographs taken as a way of categorizing us, rather than understanding who we are as people and what our voices and visions are,” says Richards. This panel discussion will tackle that tension head on, bringing new, affirming perspectives to photographic art.
On the Main Stage
Many of the arts here are both traditional and modern. Artists might consult with their elders or community, but they’re using non-traditional materials or mediums.”
— Betsy Richards, Executive Director
Part of the beauty of the Dawnland Festival is in its very name: It connects the arts and the ideas, not only through its panel discussions, but also through engaging, sometimes interactive performances.
The 2026 festival will host two primary performances:
- Storytelling by Jennifer Pictou: The Mi’kmaq artist and former museum director will weave Indigenous history into a puppeteering show on the main stage
- Music by Daniel French: The activist, actor, and freestyle rapper will speak truth to power, drawing from his Mohawk and Mexican backgrounds for his featured musical performance
Throughout the festival, visitors can head to the smaller stage to enjoy performances from storytellers, hand-drummers, singers, and dancers from various northeastern tribal nations.
Honoring Indigenous Arts and Culture
Over the past three years, the Dawnland Festival has solidified its place as a staple Maine arts event. What’s more, it’s become a rich avenue for honoring the artistic legacy of the Indigenous people in this region.
And with its emphasis on both the arts and the ideas, it’s a great opportunity to listen, learn, and leave with a deeper understanding of the Wabanaki traditions that ground Maine’s history.