Haskell seniors' art exhibit celebrates friendship, ambition and Native student life

At Haskell Cultural Center and Museum, two seniors are putting their friendship on display in a show that reaches beyond the art room and into the center of campus life. Aziza Smith and Aiyanna Tanyan created From A to Z, an exhibit of paintings and prints that runs through Oct. 1 and centers on home, family, community, the environment and womanhood.

The exhibit opened with a reception Friday, April 17, and it reflects a working relationship that grew out of student organizations and became a close personal bond. Smith and Tanyan, who come from different Native nations, built the show around the women who shaped their lives, turning shared experience into a public expression of Native identity at Haskell Indian Nations University in Lawrence.

Smith has worked at the Haskell museum for three years, and the show began almost casually, when museum director Travis Campbell joked about whether she had enough doodles for an exhibit. The result is anything but casual. From A to Z presents the kind of visual record that lets Native women define themselves on campus, with images that connect creativity to care, memory and ambition.

That ambition reaches well beyond the gallery walls. Both students are close to graduating from Haskell’s Business Administration program, where the School of Business offers a B.S. with emphases in management and tribal management. Haskell says the curriculum also includes accounting, financial management, human resources, economics, business law and tribal governance, a course of study that mirrors the breadth of the responsibilities many Native students carry as they prepare to lead in their communities.

Smith plans to continue at the University of Kansas for graduate study in public administration, while Tanyan is headed to KU for Indigenous Studies. Their path to graduation has already included national business competitions, work as research assistants on a project about public safety on reservations and a NASA workshop where they launched payloads on sounding rockets. Those experiences sit alongside the exhibit as part of the same story: Haskell students moving between research, leadership and creative expression without having to leave their identities behind.

The museum that is hosting the show is part of Haskell’s broader mission to preserve the school’s history and raise awareness of the American Indian boarding school experience through exhibitions and programming. Founded in 1884, Haskell now uses that space to tell the story of its transformation from a government boarding school to a fully accredited university. With more than 30 student clubs and organizations on campus, and with Haskell and KU continuing a partnership first established in 2012 and renewed Nov. 1, 2024, From A to Z fits into a larger network of student support, research and visibility that is helping Native women claim space in public view.