MAM presents Native Artists, Northeast Futures

In this weekend series developed with Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes, artists from Northeastern Indigenous nations share their varied artistic practices, which include photography, landscape art, digital media, painting, beadwork, fashion, and performance. In dialogue, they will reflect on their lands and waters, narrative and memory, and how their work counteracts injustice to forge new regional futures.

Featuring Artists:

Ty Defoe (Giizhig), Oneida and Ojibwe Nations, is a writer and interdisciplinary artist, and a Grammy Award winner. Ty aspires to an interweaving approach to artistic projects with social justice, Indigi-Queering, and environmentalism. Robert Rauschenberg Artist in Residence, Jonathan Larson Award, TransLab Fellow, and Rhinebeck Writers Retreat-er! Works created and authored include River of Stone, Red Pine, The Way They Lived, Ajijaak on Turtle Island, Hear Me Say My Name, and more. Ty is core member of All My Relations Collective, GIZHIBAA GIIZHIG | Revolving Sky (Under the Radar Incoming!, The Public Theater). Movement Direction: Mother Road, Dir. Bill Rauch (OSF), Manahatta, Dir. Laurie Woolery (OSF + Yale Rep), and Choreographer for Tracy Lett’s The Minutes (Broadway). Netflix show: Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and Young Jean Lee’s Straight White Men, Dir. Anna Shapiro (Broadway). Degrees from CalArts, Goddard College, + NYU Tisch. Lives in NYC + loves the color clear. He|We, www.allmyrelations.earth, tydefoe.com

Kawesoton (Mark) Light belongs to the Snipe Clan of the Mohawk Nation. He resides on the Mohawk territory at Akwesasne. At 64 years old, he has been painting most of his life and has traveled to many places across Turtle Island. Light’s work incorporates many teachings and traditions of his people as well as those of other indigenous nations. His digital work at right won the 2020 national poster contest for the National Indian Child Welfare Association. It represents how resilient his people are through the atrocities they have endured: The background silhouettes represent the broken spirits of the abused, raped, and murdered children from residential school. The children in the middle are residential children, and the kids on the sides show his people’s resilience.

Skawennati was born in Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory. She holds a BFA from Concordia University in Montreal, where she resides. She makes art that addresses history, the future, and change from an Indigenous perspective. She is known for her machinimas – movies made i n virtual environments – and also her still images called Machinimagraphs, sculptures and textiles. Her pioneering new media projects include the online gallery/chat - space and mixed - reality event, CyberPowWow (1997 - 2004); a paper doll/time - travel journal, Imagining Indians in the 25th Century (2001); and the machinimas TimeTraveller™ (2007 - 2013), She Falls For Ages (2017), The Peacemaker Returns (2017) and Words Before All Else (2018 - 2021). These have been widely presented in major exhibitions across the gl obe, including at the 57th Venice Biennale, the B3 Biennale of the Moving Image, the Biennale of the Americas; the Montreal Biennale, and the Museum of Art and Design in New York City. Her award - winning work is included in both public and private collectio ns. She is Co - Director, with Jason E. Lewis, of Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research network of artists, academics and technologists investigating, creating and critiquing Indigenous virtual environments. www.skawennati.com

Moderator & Co-curator:

Iakowi:he'ne' Oakes is a Kanien:ke’ha’/Mohawk woman, mother, cultural curator, leader, advocate, producer, coach, artist, designer, and athlete. She was born and raised in Akwesasne Mohawk Territory, a reservation that straddles the border of New York, Ontario and Quebec. She is Kaneinkehake: the Keepers of the Eastern Door in the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. Her experience and intentions are focused on nation-building, maintaining and strengthening sovereignty, the right to self-determination, land stewardship, economic development, social justice, culture, and the arts. She is the founder and director of the North American Indigenous Center of New York for Culture, Equity and Economic Development and the Chief Executive Officer of Mohawk Coterie at Mohawkcoterie.com. From the Oka Crisis, International Bridge shutdowns, Idle No More, Two Row Wampum Renewal, NODAPL, the Climate March, and the Land Back movement, she has been progressively organizing, advocating and cultivating change. www.naicny.org, www.mohawkcoterie.com

Laura J. Allen is the Curator of Native American Art at the Montclair Art Museum. Previously, she held curatorial and interpretive roles at the American Museum of Natural History, the University of Alaska Museum of the North, the State Museum of Pennsylvania, and other organizations, and has an interdisciplinary background in anthropology, design, and the natural sciences. Her research and advocacy address intercultural exchange, colonialism, and Indigenous agency; the use of animal materials; and the production, collection, circulation, and display of cultural objects and designs, especially dress and textiles. Invested in collaborative, critical museological practice that centers Indigenous perspectives, she strives to activate museum collections through (re)connection with communities of origin and inspire critically engaged audiences. www.laura-allen.com