Institute of American Indian Arts
Venice Indigenous Arts School
Jun 10–14, 2024
The Venice Indigenous Arts School was organized by the Institute of American Indian Arts, a U.S. Pavilion educational partner. From June 10 to 14, 2024, the school offered lectures, seminars, production workshops, screenings, performances by students, and programming in collaboration with the New Institute Centre for Environmental Humanities (NICHE) at Università Ca' Foscari, Venice.
Guest Speaker
Dr. Miranda Belarde-Lewis (Zuni/Tlingit) is an assistant professor of North American Indigenous Knowledge at the iSchool at the University of Washington and an independent curator. Indigenous knowledge systems are central to her work as she examines the role of social media and the arts in protecting, documenting, and perpetuating Native information and knowledge. Her work highlights and celebrates Native artists, their processes, and the exquisite pieces they create. She has worked with tribal, city, state, and federal museums to create Native-focused educational programming, publications, and art exhibitions. Belarde-Lewis holds a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Arizona, an M.A. in Museology, and Ph.D. in Information Science from the University of Washington.
Dr. Herman Piʻikea Clark is an artist, designer, and educator making drawings, paintings, textiles, sculptures, garments, and curriculum. As a keiki o ka ʻāina, he has long been inspired by his heritage and its connections with peoples and cultures across the Pacific. Since the late 1990s, Clark has played an active role in the development of an international network of Indigenous artist educators from Aotearoa to Canada. Confrontational at times and easygoing in others, his multifaceted practice—no matter its form—is always guided by his family’s deep ancestral roots across Hawaiʻi.
Yolanda Cruz (Chatina) Yolanda Cruz is an indigenous independent filmmaker from Oaxaca, Mexico. A member of the Chatino community of Oaxaca’s Sierra Sur region, she grew up speaking chatino, before migrating to Oaxaca City with her family, where she learned Spanish. As a teenager, she migrated to study and work in the USA. In her films, she draws from the tradition of oral storytelling to create narratives about art, migration, and indigenous cultures. Her two most recent feature films, Hope, Soledad, and La Raya, are the first films to be produced in the Chatino region and the first in the chatino language.
She is currently in post-production on La Raya, a comic drama produced by the Mexican Film Institute in collaboration with her community of Cieneguilla, San Juan Quiahije. She holds an MFA from the UCLA Film School and a B.A. in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College. Cruz is also a Sundance Institute Fellow.
Dr. Robert Jahnke (Ngai Taharora, Te Whanau a Iritekura, Te Whanau a Rakairo o Ngati Porou) is an artist, writer, and curator working principally as a sculptor, although trained as a designer and animator. His work focuses on the dynamics of intercultural exchange and the politics of identity. Jahnke primarily teaches in the Master of Māori Visual Arts and PhD (Fine Arts) programs out of Massey University, Palmerston North. He has a Doctor of Philosophy (Māori Studies) from Massey University, supervised by Professor Mason Durie and awarded in 2006.
Dr. Kanako Uzawa is an Ainu scholar, artist, and rights advocate. She is the founder of AinuToday, a global online platform that delivers living Ainu culture and people. She is an Assistant Professor for the Global Station for Indigenous Studies and Cultural Diversity at Hokkaido University in Japan. Her most recent work engages with Ainu art exhibitions, as a guest curator in collaboration with the University of Michigan Museum of Art in the United States, and as an associated researcher at the Museum of Cultural History at the University of Oslo in Norway. She is also an editorial board member of AlterNative: an International Journal of Indigenous Peoples in New Zealand, Aotearoa.
MFASA Faculty
Presenters/Participants
Heidi K. Brandow (Diné and Kānaka Maoli) is an artist whose work prioritizes the inclusion of Indigenous people and perspectives in creating ethical and sustainable forms of creative engagement and artistic expression. Through her creative practice, Brandow explores themes of displacement, cultural identity, and the impacts of colonialism through the lens of the Kanaka Maoli and Diné peoples. Through her art, Brandow engages in social commentary and cultural reflection to spark conversations and raise awareness on vital issues.
As a Harvard Indigenous Design Collective co-founder, Brandow emphasizes Indigenous perspectives in design and advocates for their inclusion in the field's global discourse. She also contributes as a Master Artist Mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts, guiding the next generation of artists. Brandow's roles with the Coe Center for Art, Santa Fe, NM, highlight her commitment to Indigenous empowerment and cultural material reclamation. Brandow's diverse background, including education at the Institute of American Indian Arts, Istanbul Technical University, and Harvard Graduate School of Design, informs her multidisciplinary approach, which is rich in storytelling and symbolism and embodies the transformative power of art.
Dr. Mario A. Caro is the director of the MFA in Studio Arts Program at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He is a researcher, curator, and critic of contemporary art, having published widely on the history, theory, and criticism of contemporary art. His work within the academy complements his endeavors within various communities to promote global cultural exchanges.
Raven Chacon (Diné / Chicano) is a composer, performer, and installation artist born at Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. A recording artist over the span of 22 years, Chacon has appeared on over eighty releases on national and international labels. He has exhibited, performed, or had works performed at LACMA, The Whitney Biennial, Borealis Festival, SITE Santa Fe, The Kennedy Center, and more. As an educator, Chacon is the senior composer mentor for the Native American Composer Apprentice Project (NACAP). In 2022, he was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition Voiceless Mass, and in 2023 was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship.
Andrea Carlson (Anishinaabe) is an artist from Chicago, Illinois, and her ancestral Ojibwe homeland in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Carlson’s practice includes painting, drawing, and arts writing on subjects ranging from museum studies to assimilation metaphors in film. Her work can be found in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and National Gallery of Canada. She has received awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2016), Chicago Artadia Award (2020), US Artists Fellowship (2021), and Creative Capital (2024). Carlson is a co-founder of the Center for Native Futures which sits on Potawatomi land in Chicago, Illinois.
Anna Hoover (Norwegian and Unangax̂) is an artist who creates a vision for the future. Through the work of writing and directing film, Anna shows us the places that remain where humanity strives for balance with our ancestors in the natural world, where Indigenous community knowledge is the foundation for growth. Nationally and internationally, Anna has worked with and screened her art at International Sami Film Institute, imagineNATIVE, Berlinale Native, Northwest Filmmakers, MoCNA, Maoriland, and multiple International Indigenous Artist Gatherings, BBC Earth, and the UNCOP26. Hoover is a mother, fisherwoman, pilot, and community activist. Anna is a writer for the twice Emmy-nominated PBS animated children’s television show Molly of Denali. Hoover strongly asserts intergenerational strategies in her approach to storytelling and art art-making and instruction.
Dr. Tanya Lukin Linklater (Alutiiq/Sugpiaq, b. 1976, Kodiak Island, USA) undertakes embodied inquiry in rehearsal, performance, video, installation, and writing. Her recent exhibitions include Aichi Triennale, Japan; Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; New Museum Triennial, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Toronto Biennial of Art. Her exhibition, Inner blades of grass (soft) inner blades of grass (cured) inner blades of grass (bruised by the weather), including works from the last ten years and new commissions and curated by Kelly Kivland, will be presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts in 2024. Released in spring 2024 and published on the occasion of her recent three-part exhibition of the same name, Tanya Lukin Linklater: My mind is with the weather, documents a series of significant recent works produced by Lukin Linklater at the Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; Oakville Galleries; and the Southern Alberta Art Gallery Maansiksikaitsitapiitsinikssin. Her book, Slow Scrape (2nd edition, Talonbooks, Vancouver 2022), draws on documentary poetics, concrete-based installations, and event scores, and can be read alongside her practice of choreography. She recently completed a PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University with supervision by Dylan Robinson.
Dakota Mace (Diné) is an interdisciplinary artist who focuses on translating the language of Diné history and beliefs. Mace received her MA and MFA in Photography and Textile Design at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her BFA in Photography from the Institute of American Indian Arts. As a Diné artist, her work draws from the history of her Diné heritage, exploring the themes of family lineage, community, and identity. In addition, her work pushes the viewer's understanding of Diné culture through alternative photographic techniques, weaving, beadwork, and papermaking. She is an MFA in Studio Arts Faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts and the photographer/research specialist for the Helen Louise Allen Textile Center and the Center of Design and Material Culture at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at various conferences, museums, and galleries. She is represented by Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City.
Dylan McLaughlin (Diné) is a multidisciplinary artist looking critically at ecologies of extraction and threatened ecosystems. He weaves Diné mythology, ecological data, and environmental histories while holding space for complexity. What transpires is the sonification of relationships to land through experimental music composition and improvised performance. In his multi-media installation and performative works, he looks to engage the poetics and politics of human relations to land. He is a recipient of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation LIFT award, and has done residencies at Mass MoCA, BOXO Projects, Slow Research Lab and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He received his BFA in New Media Art from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and his MFA in Art & Ecology from the University of New Mexico. He is currently an Early Career Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin.
Jackson Polys is a Tlingit multi-disciplinary artist, living and working between what are currently called Alaska and New York. He holds an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University (2015) and recipient of Native Arts and Cultures Foundation fellowships, and a United States Artist Fellowship. He is a core contributor to New Red Order (NRO), a public secret society that, with an interdisciplinary network of Informants, co-produces video, performance, and installation works that examine and aim to shift obstructions to Indigenous growth. His individual and collaborative works have appeared with the Alaska State Museum, Anchorage Museum, Art Sonje, Artists Space, Creative Time, Haus der Kulturen der Welt Berlin, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, MOMENTA Biennale de l'image, Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Museum of Modern Art, New York Film Festival, Sundance Film Festival, Toronto Biennial of Art, and the Whitney Biennial 2019, among other institutions.
Jordan Poorman Cocker (Kiowa and Tonga) Jordan Poorman Cocker is a curator, artist, and an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. Cocker’s artistic and intellectual kinship is rooted in her Toyebo and Dohausan family legacies of Kiowa beadwork. Her curatorial practice centers on Indigenous research methodologies prioritizing reciprocity, sustained collaboration, and tribal sovereignty. She holds a Master of Museum and Heritage Practice from Victoria University of Wellington and a Bachelor of Design from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. She currently serves as the Curator of Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Before her appointment, Cocker served as the 2020 -2022 Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar of Indigenous Art at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is the 2021–25 Terra Foundation guest co-curator of Indigenous Art at the Block Museum of Art. She is an artist mentor for the Institute of American Indian Art’s Masters of Fine Arts in Studio Arts program.
Isabella Robbins is a Diné scholar and PhD candidate in the History of Art and American Studies departments at Yale University. Her dissertation, “Relationality and Being: Indigeneity, Space, and Transit in Global Contemporary Art,” interrogates the category of contemporary indigenous art to understand how indigeneity serves as a relational analytic in the work of artists across the settler states of Australia, Canada, and the U.S. She teaches Indigenous art history and theory courses in the IAIA Studio Arts MFA program. She has held curatorial positions at the Yale University Art Gallery, Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, and Cantor Arts Center, and is on the board of The Chapter House, a Native women-led community arts organization, and the Diné Studies Association.
Sara Siestreem (Hanis Coos) is a master artist from the Umpqua River Valley on the South Coast of Oregon. She comes from a family of professional artists and educators; her training began in the home. Her mentor is Lillian Pitt (Wasco, Warm Springs, Yakama) and her weaving teachers are Greg Archuleta (Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde) and Greg A. Robinson (Chinook Nation). Siestreem graduated Phi Kappa Phi with a BS from PSU in 2005. She earned an MFA with distinction from Pratt Art Institute in 2007. She is represented by Elizabeth Leach Gallery. Her studio work is multi-disciplinary. Her primary language is painting, but she also works in photography, printmaking, drawing, sculpture, video, traditional Indigenous weaving, and large-scale installation. Her art practice branches into education and institutional reform and these concepts directly influence and are reflected in her artwork and public presence. She lives and works exclusively in the arts in Portland, Oregon.
Yvonne Tiger is a Citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma and is also of the Seminole and Mvskoke Nations. She is a PhD candidate in the Cultural, Social and Political Thought program at the University of Lethbridge. A first-generation college graduate, Tiger holds an AB degree from Smith College, and two MAs from the University of Oklahoma, in 20th c. U.S. History, and in Native American Studies—Native American Art History and Curating, studies conducted within OU’s department of Art History. Her current research connects Cherokee pottery to the land in kinship as a place-based art and to her mound building ancestors from whom pottery making came. She also works in Indigenous refusal and has structured an ethical Indigenous methodological approach to her citational practice. She is an Indigenous art historian and teaches Indigenous studies and art history courses at the University of Lethbridge and the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, NM. She has held fellowships at the Peabody-Essex Museum, with the Momus Emerging Indigenous Critics Residency, and Otsego Institute for Native American Art History. She was a Scholar-in-Residence at Smith College and is a Cobell Scholar.
Student Participants
Class of 2025
Cole Taylor (Dakota) is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice ranges from customary work to producing art that historicizes his Mdewakanton Dakota community.
Avis Charley (Spirit Lake Dakota/Diné) is a mother and an artist. She is a painter and a ledger artist using colored pencils on antique documents. She enjoys depicting Native empowerment using the female form as her main subject.
Ursala Hudson (Tlingit) Hudson explores her experience as a modern-day, globalized Indigenous Woman with mixed ancestry through her artwork. Her garments have walked the runway at Indigenous Fashion Week Toronto, Adäka Festival in British Columbia, and the SWAIA runway invitational in Santa Fe, NM.
Kathleen Wall (Jemez Pueblo) Wall created her first storyteller when she was 8. She descends from a long line of ceramic artists. From her grandmother, Cari Loretto of Jemez Pueblo, who taught six daughters, to her mother Fannie, who taught her in turn, Kathleen has supported herself as a working artist from the age of 17.
Kimberly Fulton Orozco (Haida, Mexicana, Anglo) is a multidisciplinary producer of storytelling projects. She holds a BFA in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking from Georgia State University. Her work is deeply rooted in the storytelling traditions of her Haida ancestors.
Shannon Hooper (Paiute and Shoshone) is an interdisciplinary artist who creates Northern Paiute and Western Shoshone traditional and contemporary arts while promoting a positive representation of Northern Nevada Native Americans.
Lecture: Keywords in Indigenous Arts: Theoretical Framings
Presenters: Andrea Carlson, Raven Chacon, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Dakota Mace, Isabella Robbins, Sara Siestreem, Kanako Uzawa
Location: Teatro Ca' Foscari, Calle Larga S. Marta, 2137, 30121 Venezia VE, ItalyAs part of the Venice Indigenous Arts School, this public program focused on the theoretical underpinnings of developing keywords in Indigenous arts. Often, these terms have no equivalence in Western arts terminology and, therefore, constitute a new means of contextualizing Indigenous arts, one that is centered on Indigenous ways of knowing.
Performance: The Space in Which We Story
Artists: Avis Charley, Shannon Hooper, Ursala Hudson, Kimberly Fulton Orozco, Cole Taylor, Kathleen Wall
Location: U.S. Pavilion, Giardini alla BiennaleThis outdoor performance by MFA Class of 2025 artists Avis Charley, Shannon Hooper, Ursala Hudson, Kathleen Wall, Kimberly Fulton Orozco, and Cole Taylor explored the pedagogical practices that often occur around the kitchen table in Native households, activating the Jeffrey Gibson sculpture, the space in which to place me, in the U.S. Pavilion forecourt.
“Visual storying provides a sense of the active, the living, and the enduring ways that Indigenous ontologies and epistemologies intersect with the creation of Indigenous art, providing a useful frame or tool for thinking the complexities that surround theorizing particular Indigenous art histories.”
—Carmen Robertson, “Writing and Sharing Our Art Histories, Storying Histories of Art: Activating the Visual” The Routledge Companion to Indigenous Art Histories in the United States and Canada, 2023
The universality of the kitchen table is at once banal and specific. Drawing from Sherry Farrell Racette's “Kitchen Table Logic,” our group will explore a pedagogy that is integral to the cultures that each of us bears, and what it means to prepare for gatherings in each of our lives. This is an event for us to build community, together, it is not didactic; in a sense, it is an anti-performance. It is based on sincere conversation and connection in a foreign context. While we reserve the right to opacity of our own cultural performances that take place within our vastly diverse communities, we are exposing common ground, where being is enough—where we are safe together to acknowledge and discuss our inherited ways of knowing and thinking about the world around us.
Lecture: Keywords in Indigenous Arts: Practice
Presenters: Heidi Brandow, Jordan Poorman Cocker, Yolanda Cruz, Anna Hoover, Miranda Belarde Lewis, Dylan McLaughlin, Jackson Polys, Yvonne Tiger
Location: Ca' Dolfin, Calle de la Saoneria, 3825/D, 30123 Venezia VE, ItalyThis public program continued the discussion of contemporary Indigenous arts terminology and focused on the application of this new lexicon within various arts discourses, such as art history, theory, and criticism from the perspective of artist practitioners.
Please find below the complete conversations and performances from throughout the week.