In this offering, Navajo (Diné) elder Jonah Yellowman honors his community’s deep spiritual connection to the land and his Navajo culture. Corn is sacred to the Navajo; not only is it food, but corn pollen is used in prayer and ceremony throughout the day. The four colors of corn relate to the four cardinal directions, as indicated by the hand-sewn textile made by Jonah’s daughter Trina Yellowman. Each direction carries important meaning, individually and collectively. The offering is at the heart of Sheikh’s In Place work. During an exhibition at the Denver Art Museum in 2024, Yellowman blessed the galleries with cedar, sage, and sweetgrass, medicines familiar to the ancestors of his own community, and to the ancestors of those on whose land the museum now rests.
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