Valerie DeCora Guimaraes, Spirit Tree, 2020.

Spirit Trees

ON VIEW April 29 - November 15, 2026

CO-CURATORS: Valerie DeCora Guimaraes, Zoe Cinel

FEATURED ARTISTS: Chanelle Gallagher, Lela Pierce, Stephanie Lindquist

In 2019 Valerie DeCora Guimaraes, founder of the Greater Rochester Area Dakota Supporters (GRADS) and a member of the Heritage Preservation Committee, wrote a letter to the City Council, trying to raise awareness about the importance of local Spirit Trees in the midst of the City’s plan to cut trees for urban development. In 2024, Valerie reached out to the Rochester Art Center for support in creating an exhibition that focused on the importance of trees and nature of the indigenous communities and beyond. 

Spirit Trees is a group exhibition that celebrates the many ways trees support life on this planet and their longstanding witness to human history. Trees are sacred to Indigenous communities and also are fundamental to connecting all humans with nature. They are a connector with the land and they bring communities together. The exhibition features three contemporary artists with diverse backgrounds whose work uses primarily natural materials and directly addresses our connection to nature. Their work fosters deep reflections around the role of nature and art in sustaining life. 

In addition to the multimedia artworks, the exhibition includes a participatory activity and photographs of local trees taken by Guimaraes and community members since 2019 in an attempt to preserve trees that might soon be cut down in the pursuit of progress and development. As Guimaraes states:

“Rochester should realize the history that the trees have witnessed. The trees I photographed range in age from 126 to 251 years. They saw the Dakota people while they lived in this area, they saw the founding of Rochester and Mayo. We need more reverence for them.” 

Guimaraes’ powerful acknowledgment is grounded in the principles of Spiritual Ecology, a field that looks at environmentalism through a deeper, sacred understanding of nature as an animate, living being.

In 2019, Guimaraes interviewed the Lakȟóta Medicine Man Basil Braveheart, author of the book "Awaken the Sacred." In this book, Braveheart connects traditional Lakȟóta spiritual insights with quantum physics, offering a new perspective on healing, spirituality and reciprocity. Guimaraes visited Braveheart at Lake Sylvan in South Dakota to learn about healing and reconciliation while hiking to the summit of Black Elk Peak together. In the gallery, visitors are invited to listen to the audio recordings of their conversation and learn about the sacredness of trees, the healing they provide, the witness they bear to human life, and their significance in guiding and sustaining human life. 

Rochester is an internationally known medical destination and much of the city life revolves around healing and medicine. We believe that an exhibition focusing on the principles of Spiritual Ecology and featuring artworks created in communion with nature is a great contribution to communal healing.

About the Artists

Chanelle Gallagher (Anishinaabe) is a Minneapolis-based artist whose practice centers continual movement through time, memory, and material. Working primarily with waabigan (clay), she builds forms that hold overlapping temporalities of ancestral memory, embodied present, and speculative futures where time is layered and returned to. Chanelle is currently pursuing her MFA at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is a former First People’s Fellow and was a Native American Artist-in-Residence at the Minnesota Historical Society.

Lela Pierce is a Black multiracial artist born and raised in rural MniSota Makoce. She has lived in the Twin Cities for over two decades - maintaining artistic practices in painting, performance and installation work. Lela has been a recipient of the Jerome Emerging Artist Grant and the Jerome Hill fellowship. She currently teaches Sculpture at Macalester College.

Also based in MniSota Makoce Stephanie Lindquist, is an artist who plays with printmaking, painting, photography, and soil, creating tension between obfuscating and divulging images of place and people. Through making, gardening, cooking, bathing, and medicine making Lindquist is learning about our diverse, overlooked ancient roots and knowledge systems that provide insight into our modern challenges around sustainability.

About the Curators

Valerie DeCora Guimaraes, DNP, MA, RN, is a Patient Experience Ambassador, at Mayo Clinic and an Adjunct Professor at UMR Nursing Program. Valerie received a Doctor of Nursing Practice degree at Augsburg University, Minneapolis, MN, a Master’s degree through Lesly University, Cambridge, MA, and a BSN at Winona State University, Rochester, MN. Valerie is the founder of the Greater Rochester Area Dakota Supporters (GRADS), a 501c3 non-profit, grassroots organization in Rochester, Minnesota with a mission of promoting healing and understanding through education and reconciliation. Valerie also serves on the American Indian Parent Committee, Ho-Chunk Nation Health Board, Center for American Indian and Minority Health Board, and the Proof Alliance Advisory Board. 

Zoe Cinel is the Curator at the Rochester Art Center, an interdisciplinary artist and immigrant living and working on Dakota and Ojibwe Mni Sota Makoce land. Through art and organizing, they strive to produce social change. 

A special thank you to Diane and Kevin Lund for their support.