Dakota Mace is a Navajo (Diné) artist from Albuquerque, New Mexico whose current body of work employs photography and weaving to investigate the issues of the romanticized representation of Native Americans, gender roles, stereotypes, identity, and of her Native culture. Through her research, she has found that it is important to address these issues that are prevalent today for Native Americans and to enforce a positive representation for Indigenous peoples.
Her latest work explores Navajo textile design by recontextualizing and abstracting Navajo creation stories. In developing this body of work, Mace seeks to create a bridge to understanding Native American traditional practices through nontraditional forms of art, while bringing these Indigenous traditions into the fine art world.
Mace received her MA from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, her BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM, and is currently an MFA candidate at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
