See the future through the eyes of 6 Indigenous artists

Cannupa Hanska Luger

Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota

Based in Glorieta, New Mexico, Luger places an optimistic emphasis on Native peoples’ proven ability to adapt to a changing world. He delves into speculative fiction to present a future “where we’re in right relationship with our environment and our kin.” The work shown here is part of a series that uses installation, video, and performance art to tell an ongoing narrative about combating societal ills. Among these, according to Luger, are capitalism and colonialism, which manifest as corporeal monsters. Set in an undetermined time, the video shows heroic “monster slayers” bringing water to a barren landscape. The desert reciprocates, providing tools for confronting the evil forces.

Star WallowingBull

Ojibwe, Arapaho

Drawing inspiration for this painting from the dynamic movements and gestures of powwow dancers in colorful regalia—as well as the Teton mountains’ Teewinot peak and even Scandinavian floral elements—WallowingBull blends cultural symbolism and futurism. In this way, the Fargo, North Dakota, resident reminds viewers that “the traditional and the technological belong together.” 

Caroline Monnet

Anishinaabe and French

Monnet—who created both the featured garments and the image shown here—uses fashion photography tropes to upend stereotypical depictions of passive Indigenous women viewed through a colonial gaze. Instead, the Montréal-based artist showcases the elegance, resilience, and eccentricities of multiple generations of women who “demand to be seen and heard.” She adds: “The women around me are not victims. They are very much part of society and are building the world for tomorrow.”

Sarah Roselena

Wixárika

A fourth-generation weaver and a computational craft professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Rosalena juxtaposes traditional handicraft and emerging technology. Embracing a “man-machine collaboration,” she uses a custom Jacquard loom to transform her designs—often based on images found in nature or the cosmos, like this one of the Milky Way as captured by the Hubble telescope—from pixels into threads that she then handweaves. In doing so, she’s “orienting the viewer into thinking beyond boundaries and gesturing them toward the infinite.”

Nicholas Galanin

Tlingit, Unangax̂

Made with metal diverted from construction of the U.S.-Mexico border wall, this installation “protests barriers obstructing the movement of all life connected to and dependent on land,” says Galanin, who lives in Sitka, Alaska. It first stood in New York City’s Brooklyn Bridge Park and is set to move elsewhere. Depending on the angle of approach, the structure is either passable or impassable—an embodiment of “the experience of rights and privileges that are unseen to those afforded them and consistently visible to those excluded.”

Casey Koyczan

Dene

For this series, Koyczan—based in Winnipeg, Canada—reimagined Indigenous cultural materials such as beads, porcupine quills, dentalium shells, and even antlers into mesmerizing humanlike figures walking in a circle. With his surreal artwork, he urges audiences to contemplate “who we are, where we come from, and where we are going.”