PHILADELPHIA – As the United States marks its semiquincentennial, the Penn Museum has commissioned multidisciplinary artist Holly Wilson (Delaware Nation/Delaware Tribe) to transform its East Entrance with a large-scale installation dedicated to Native Futurism. The mixed-media artwork will be unveiled at a public dedication and artist-led talk on Saturday, July 11, 2026, from 2:30 to 3:30 pm.
The installation’s centerpiece will be a nearly 20-foot photorealistic painting depicting Wilson’s memory of her young children catching fireflies one summer evening in Mustang, Oklahoma. Their attire reveals a pattern from a bandolier bag that belonged to a family member who was the last official hereditary chief of the Delaware Nation. In this work, Wilson uses the bandolier bag pattern as a wearable expression of Indigenous identity, culture, and resilience.
“We are celebrating 250 years of the country, but at the same time, that is a reminder of all the destruction to our communities and of the removal of us from our homelands. There are two stories here. If you do not tell the whole story, how can you have history?” Wilson says. “The theme ‘Native Futurism’ refers to children: what they carry, what they hold, what they tell, what stories they remember, how we give them history. That’s our future. If we lose that connection, then we don’t have a future – because we’ve lost our history.”
Wilson will also handcraft numerous three-inch bronze and aluminum castings of fireflies and other decorative features to add three-dimensional elements. Other components include Wilson’s photographs of plants indigenous to the Philadelphia region and archival images of Lenape people translucently applied to the glass on the building’s exterior windows.
The artist will also be participating in educator workshops and a family event on October 10, 2026, for Indigenous Peoples’ Day as the Penn Museum collaborates with Philadelphia Historic District’s 52 Weeks of Firsts, Art Philly’s What Now: 2026, and Penn and Philly’s 250 Years of Shared History as part of its year-round semiquincentennial programming.
“When people see this work, I want them to see hope. Hope for the future is the biggest thing that we’re missing,” explains Wilson, who also created I Am More Than Fluff, a sculpture of a little girl enclosed in feathers and glass, on view in the new Native North America Gallery. “We’re still here. That’s why I use kid imagery. The importance of who they are and where they fit will live on with them. That’s the future.”
About the Artist
Holly Wilson, mixed media artist, will create a site-specific, large-scale installation for the Penn Museum’s East Entrance
Holly Wilson creates figures as her storytellers, conveying stories of the sacred and the precious, capturing moments of our day, vulnerabilities, and strengths. The stories are, at one time, both representations of family history and personal experiences. Wilson’s work reaches a broad audience, allowing the viewer to see their own personal connection. She works in various media, including bronze, paint, encaustic, photography, clay, and glass. These works have been exhibited since the early 1990s in private, corporate, public, and museum collections nationally and internationally.
An enrolled citizen of the Delaware Nation and descendant of the Delaware Tribe of Indians, Holly Wilson is now based in Mustang, Oklahoma. In 2001, she graduated with an MFA in sculpture; in 1994, she earned an MA in ceramics from Stephen F. Austin State University, Nacogdoches, Texas; and in 1992, she received a BFA in ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Links
- Holly Wilson (Delaware Nation/Delaware Tribe) | Instagram
- I Am More than Fluff (2022), sculpture by Holly Wilson in the collection of the Penn Museum
- Penn Museum, 3260 South Street, Philadelphia, PA | map | Native North American Gallery
- 52 Weeks of Firsts, Visit Philadelphia
- ArtPhilly’s What Now 2026
- Penn & Philly: 250 Years of Shared History