Art
Millen Brown-Ewens
Inga Wiktoria-Påve, bury my heart in Sapmi don’t forget its beating, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
After centuries of being undervalued, marginalized, and misunderstood, Native and Indigenous artists are rightfully claiming their space on the global stage. As many curators forecast in their art trends for 2024, Indigenous artists offering counternarratives to the traditional Western historical record are gaining increased visibility and recognition.
At this year’s Venice Biennale, for instance, the presence of Indigenous art was particularly notable, with artists from all over the world responding to the central exhibition theme, “Foreigners Everywhere.” Through poignant and emotive work, first inhabitants of countries such as Australia, Canada, Finland, and the U.S. conveyed the profound and often devastating legacies of colonialism. In particular, artists focused on the ways that colonialism has turned Indigenous people into foreigners on their own ancestral lands. This recognition culminated in the prestigious Golden Lion jury prizes being awarded to Indigenous artists Archie Moore (for Australia’s national pavilion) and Aotearoa New Zealand’s Mataaho Collective (for work in the international exhibition).
Building on the success of its recent acquisitions, the Tate in London also recently announced a new initiative dedicated to increasing the representation of Indigenous artists in its collection and the staging of the first large-scale retrospective of Aboriginal Australian artist Emily Kame Kngwarreye ever to be held in Europe—scheduled for July 2025. Elsewhere, Norwegian museum KODE Bergen is currently showing a vast and varied account of Indigenous experiences, exhibiting work by over 170 artists in its latest undertaking, “Indigenous Histories.”
For International Day of the World’s Indigenous People, we spoke to curators Katya García-Antón and Joseph M. Sánchez about the issues still facing Indigenous communities worldwide, highlighting six emerging artists who are honoring the rich cultural heritage of their forebears.
Inga Wiktoria-Påve
B. 1990. Lives and works in Kiruna, Sweden.
Northern Sámi
Inga Wiktoria-Påve, Aura, 2023. Courtesy of the artist.
Portrait of Inga-Wiktoria Påve by Sara Lansgren. Courtesy Inga-Wiktoria Påve.
Inga Wiktoria-Påve’s artworks are centered around storytelling. In a practice that encompasses drawing, painting, animation, and material craft, she draws on Sámi cosmologies and creation stories. Her vibrant, geometric acrylic paintings comprising layers of Sámi symbolism are the most resonant. Evoking the native interconnectedness of the Arctic Circle, Wiktoria-Påve depicts the circumpolar currents that revolve around the sun as well as the innermost rings, adorned with motifs of reindeers and birds: a reminder of the enduring harmony between nature and Indigenous life.
Her work is also related to the Sámi practice of duodji, explained Katya García-Antón, who was co-curator of the Sámi pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2022 and most recently co-editor of the Indigenous Histories Reader (2024). “This encapsulates Sámi ethics, aesthetics, and spiritual values, knowledges of land, climate, and materials, as well as practical skills, all of which can be deployed in the making of something.” Since duodji is often translated as “handicraft,” many Western institutions have not typically considered Sámi practices as art but studied them as ethnographic material, divorcing objects from their inherently rich philosophy.
“As a talented duojár, Wiktoria-Påve handmakes objects and artwork deriving and depicting nomadic life in the tundra, that both revive techniques passed on across generations, and carry vital stories about identity, ethics, and spirituality,” said García-Antón.
B. 1977. Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Wadawurrung
Portrait of Kait James, 2024. Photo by Sarah Forgie. Courtesy of the artist and Neon Parc.
Kait James’s art explores the duality of her identity as an Australian woman with both Anglo and Indigenous Wadawurrung heritage. In her color-saturated “Souvenir” series, James appropriates Aboriginal-themed souvenir tea towels from the 1970s and ’80s. On top, she embroiders pop culture imagery that addresses the commercialization and racist stereotyping of Indigenous culture in wool thread. She has since upscaled these works, using punch needling and elements of fabric collages to fill the almost 2-meter-tall frames that were exhibited at NGV Australia in Melbourne last Spring.
Executed with caustic wit and brash vividness, James embroiders corrective messages onto the “memorabilia” to mock colonial hypocrisy. For example, Take Me to Your Weaver (2022) features the titular triumphant block-lettered instructions on a 1977 calendar tea towel. The work plays with the supposed “otherness” of First Nations cultures in the eyes of colonial settlers, stitching a glowing green alien head in place of the tea towel’s reproduction of an Aboriginal bark painting.
Elsewhere, James shares a more personal and playful narrative. In the textile piece Every day is like survival (2020), she repurposes a towel from 1983 and titles it after lyrics from the Culture Club song “Karma Chameleon,” which was released that year. Her neon embroidered additions turn the phrase into a comment on Indigenous struggle.
B. 1997. Lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.
Butchulla & Burmese
Portrait of Mia Boe by Phoebe Kelly. Courtesy of the artist and Sutton Gallery.
The daughter of a Burmese immigrant on her father’s side and a descendant of the Butchulla people of K’gari (formerly known as Fraser Island) on her mother’s, Mia Boe’s practice is guided by the inheritance and disinheritance of both cultures. Since neither of her parents grew up with a strong connection to the traditions of their cultures, Boe’s knowledge comes through her own research, finding parallels in their histories. Her acrylic paintings on linen respond, often abstractly, to acts of police violence and unjust carceral systems perpetrated on the people and lands of the two countries. Both colonized by the British, Burma (now Myanmar) and Australia share a legacy of colonialism that has profoundly impacted their Indigenous cultures and traditions, influencing Boe’s exploration of her identity and heritage.
In confrontational works, characterized by a palette of ultramarine, ocher, black, and grey, Boe populates sparse landscapes with strange, languid figures who are often imprisoned, or keeping company with animals or star-shaped spirits: emblems of her ancestors the artist will never get to know.
Indeed, Boe is part of a new wave of Indigenous artists, who are finding their own authentic ways to connect with their heritage. “Many emerging artists like Boe are beginning to explore ideas that reflect their specific cultural background without pandering to an audience that desires the romantic version of Native people,” said Native American artist and curator Joseph Sánchez.
B. 1989. Lives and works in Montreal, Canada.
Anishinaabe
Portrait of Nico Williams by Cory Hunlin, 2022. Courtesy of Blouin Division.
First Nations Anishinaabe artist Nico Williams narrates modern Indigenous experiences in playful hand-woven beadwork sculptures that preserve and enrich the visual legacy of his ancestors. Overlaying Anishinaabe geometric designs with visual motifs found in 19th-century beadwork, Williams depicts quotidian objects such as bingo cards, cereal boxes, and cleaning cloths. The juxtaposition of traditions both old and new illuminates connections between them.
Williams’s artistic practice, for which he was recently shortlisted for the Sobey Art Award, is concerned with relationships and kinship. For the Anishinaabe, the energy imbued in a beaded piece during its creation is often more significant than the finished product itself. Beading is a meditative process, performed with a sense of peaceful intention, where the creator focuses on the person for whom the piece is made—even if that person is themself.
“Exploring a spiritual connection to traditional practices is important for Indigenous artists,” said Sánchez. “By not solely following styles of contemporary masters they can use learned skill and information, such as beading, to reach deeper into who they are as a First Nations, Native Indian, or Indigenous artist.”
This summer, Williams was commissioned for a site-specific installation at the Brooklyn Museum. There, the artist has installed prismatic beaded bands that line the risers of the plaza steps. The commission takes its title from the greeting “Aaniin,” which means both “hello” and “I see your light” to welcome visitors and invite them to consider the legacy of Indigenous art.
B. 2001. Lives and works in Four Corners region, Navajo Nation.
Diné (Navajo)
Textile art, photography, print, and sculpture all feature in the work of Tyrell Tapaha, a sixth-generation Diné weaver, artist, and sheep herder.
In their current solo show “Just a Sheepherder” at The Valley in Taos, New Mexico, Tapaha relates their experience of working with the land and animals. In particular, their raw, animal and plant fiber weavings approach pastoral iconography with a fresh, queer-centric lens, incorporating their lived experiences and community history.
“Artists using the natural world in their presentations represent a need to think of art as more than commercial objects, but instead as part of a tradition that thanks our ancestors for the blessing of our gift,” reflects Sánchez. “Spirituality, tradition, and connection to our Mother Earth through community and social responsibility are some of the most potent considerations of Indigenous artists today.”
For example, the tapestry Think for Yourself (2022) is crafted in a traditional Diné style, using wool harvested from the artist’s own herd in the Four Corners region. The tapestry features two elders floating within an oscillating picture plane of clashing patterns, including the whirling log symbol, a traditional Diné motif. For decades, this symbol has been suppressed by a settler-dominated art market due to its conflation with the Nazi insignia. However, in recent years, contemporary Diné artists are reclaiming its message of good luck, healing, and balance.
Máret Anne Sara
B. 1983. Lives and works in Kautokeino, Norway.
Northern Sámi
Portrait of Máret Anne Sara with Gutted – Gávogálši, 2022, in the Sámi pavilion at the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 2022. Photo by Photo: Michael Miller. Courtesy of the Office for Contemporary Art Norway.
Máret Anne Sara grew up in a reindeer herding family that was treated harshly by the Norwegian state, and initially trained as a journalist. Today, however, her artwork mounts a staunch defence of contemporary Sámi worldviews.
In Sara’s sculptural installation Ale suova sielu sáiget (2022), exhibited at the 2022 Venice Biennale, she assembles a haunting sculpture of hope and grief, life and death. This hanging mobile of cured red reindeer calves and dried plants from the tundra evokes the intimate bond between the Sámi reindeer herding community and their beloved Sápmi (land). In one sense, it laments the loss of newborn calves to state-imposed culling and starvation resulting from the brutal impact of climate change. In another, it draws on the centrality of the reindeer as a symbolic animal for Sámi spirituality: a carrier of new life and perpetuation of tradition.
“Sara is an artist that plunges deep into an existential and spiritual reflection on how the Sámi nation can survive and build an Indigenous future in the face of the climate crisis and deeply entrenched colonial systems,” said curator García-Antón. “Within the frame of rapidly accelerating climate change, these perspectives are of particular urgency.”