At this year’s Venice Biennale, Brazil’s representatives will shine a light on their home country’s indigenous peoples, once brought to the brink of extinction by colonial rule and now fighting to reclaim what was taken from them. 

The mission starts with the name of the exhibition site, which has been rebranded from the Brazilian Pavilion to the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion—a reference to the Pataxó people’s word for the territory before it was colonized by the Portuguese. Artist and activist Glicéria Tupinambá has been tapped to take it over, but hers isn’t the only work that will be on view. Artists Olinda Tupinambá and Ziel Karapotó also have contributions planned. 

For Denilson Baniwa, Arissana Pataxó, and Gustavo Caboco Wapichana—the three curators behind the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion—a communal approach was central to the message.  

“The show brings together the Tupinambá Community and artists coming from the coastal peoples—the first to be transformed into foreigners in their own Hãhãw (ancestral territory)—in order to express a different perspective on the vast territory where more than 300 indigenous peoples live (Hãhãwpuá),” the curators said in a joint written statement.  

For them, the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion “tells a story of indigenous resistance in Brazil, the strength of the body present in the retaking of territory and adaptation to climatic emergencies.” 

Curators Denilson Baniwa, Arissana Pataxo, and Gustavo Caboco Wapichana. Photo: Cabrel. Courtesy of the São Paulo Biennial Foundation.

“Ka’a Pûera: we are walking birds” is the name of the show planned for the pavilion—and it too says a lot about how the curators are thinking of their Venice project. The key phrase, Ka’a Pûera, is a portmanteau that suggests dual allusions: first, to a type of cropland that, after being harvested, yields a wave of low-lying vegetation; and second, to a small bird that expertly camouflages itself in dense forests. 

Both images reflect the Tupinambá, who were considered extinct until 2002, when they were finally recognized by the Brazilian State. In this sense, the Tupinambá are both birds and resurgent croplands: nearly erased but never gone, powerful in their ability to blend in, more powerful when they demand not to. 

Artist Glicéria Tupinambá. Courtesy of the São Paulo Biennial Foundation.

A series of mantles—feathered capes made by the Tupinambás—are included in a pavilion installation planned by Glicéria Tupinambá, who has pushed to have the few remaining examples from the 17th-century repatriated to Brazil. One of just 11 known mantles from this period was recently returned from the National Museum of Denmark, where it had lived since 1689. The other 10 remain in European collections. 

“The garment spans time and brings the issues of colonization into the present day, while the Tupinambá and other peoples continue their anti-colonial struggles in their territories—like the Ka’a Pûera, birds that walk over resurgent forests,” the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion said. 

Glicéria Tupinambá, Manto tupinambá (Tupinambá Mantle) (2023). Courtesy of the artist.

“We are living in a moment of convergence between the past, the present, and the future, in order to find a path towards sustainable ways of life and a rethinking of human relations,” said Andrea Pinheiro, president of the Fundação Bienal de São Paulo. “The questions raised by the work of the curators and artists point to relevant paths for the arduous process ahead of us.” 

The concerns of the Hãhãwpuá Pavilion mirror those of the main exhibition at this year’s 60th Venice Biennale, organized by another Brazilian curator, Adriano Pedrosa. A sprawling presentation of 332 artists titled “Foreigners Everywhere,” his planned show is all about outsiders. The exhibition includes numerous indigenous artists—including the Brazilian collective Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin—who are, according to Pedrosa’s curatorial statement, “frequently treated as [foreigners in their] own land.” 

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At first the scene seems familiar – people sipping white wine from plastic cups, strolling from one room to the next, admiring works on the walls.

But within minutes it’s clear something very different is in store at the Kluge Ruhe museum. The floor vibrates as the music of the Australian aboriginal people floats through the galleries.

Four men with traditional instruments parade through the crowd, sharing the story of crocodiles and warriors in Arnhem Land – the far northeastern part of Australia.

Curator Henry Skerritt says the song, the paintings and prints on the walls descend from the oldest continuous art tradition on the planet. The works are rich in texture with repeating patterns and images of nature reflecting the spiritual beliefs of the artists.

“There are ways of seeing and understanding the world that are very different to the ways that you and I here in the United States see and value the world + It also says we are all connected. We are all family. One of the artists in the exhibition says we’re all under the same stars, so how different can we be?”

And artist Joshua Thaiday says these works speak to the resilience of his people in their fight to preserve their culture and protect their land.

“We have a word in our language — it means standing up from where you’re sitting and going again, and standing up and going again. It speaks of the resilience of my people and the struggles that we went through, but nothing is going to stop us from taking one step forward in the right direction.”

He and seven other Aboriginal men and women were welcomed in Cherokee and English by Kody Grant, UVA’s tribal liaison.

“It is a great honor to visit with you here today. I’m very glad that the creator was able to guide you here safely to spend time with us. In our language we don’t have a word for goodbye, so we say until we see each other again.”

And future meetings are possible. The museum has hosted more than 400 Indigenous artists and scholars since Charlottesville resident John Kluge donated his massive collection to the University of Virginia.

“In 1988 John Kluge, at that stage one of the richest men in the world, visited Dreamings – The Art of Aboriginal Australians at the Asia Society in New York,” Skerritt explains. “He saw the work, and he – like many people – fell in love with it. Unlike many people, he had the money to hop on an airplane immediately and go to Australia and start buying aboriginal art. He was just buying with a budget and a speed that no one could match.”

He would also purchase the collection of Edward Ruhe, a Professor at the University of Kansas who discovered Aboriginal art as a visiting professor. Today, the museum is the most significant collection of its kind outside Australia with more than 3,600 pieces.

It stores many of them in a climate-controlled room filled with cabinets that contain narrow drawers stacked 20 high. Skerritt invites translator Mayatili Marika to view one particular painting on bark – a common medium for artists in her homeland.

“We come from a very, very remote coastal hamlet in the northern most part of Australia,” she says. “We don’t even have traffic lights or roundabouts. The closest cinema or McDonalds is 1,100 kilometers on a dirt road, which takes 12 hours if the track is good.”

Skerritt opens a drawer to reveal a painting featuring monitor lizards – the spirit animal of Marika’s people. She’s moved to tears –- seeing this work which was created by her father and grandfather.

“I see the spirit of my grandfather and my father in this, and I don’t really have sufficient adjectives to articulate the power and the life force that this brings me right now standing here,” she whispers. “It’s a little bit overwhelming.”

The show is called Madayin – a word that means sacred. It will be on display until July 14^th at the museum and the Fralin on campus, the Second Street Gallery, Les Yeux du Mond and the rotunda. Then it will travel to the Asia Society in New York where John Kluge had his first encounter with Aboriginal art.

History has shown that being an artist and a woman is no easy task. And being a woman and an artist and of biracial Cherokee-Scottish heritage is a mountainous undertaking on the road to success. Lucky for us, at 88, Kay WalkingStick is still up to the challenge—she has proven she can move mountains and seas and everything in between with the stroke of a brush.

The current exhibition at the New York Historical Society, Kay WalkingStick/Hudson River School, puts contemporary paintings from WalkingStick’s six-decade career in a vital and lively conversation with the museum’s signature landscapes by Cole, Bierstadt, Durand, and John Frederick Kensett, among others.

Such a dialogue can be both harmonious and divergent. Wendy Nalani E. Ikemoto, the museum’s senior curator of American art and a Native Hawaiian, has said that she wanted to see their collection of Hudson River School paintings through WalkingStick’s own eyes. 

One of the most moving and majestic paintings of the artist’s is Farewell to the Smokies (Trail of Tears) 2007. It is a powerful diptych with a bare-bones depiction of monolithic peaks, contrasted with the departing hordes of the “five civilized tribes,” the human element in smaller scale across the bottom of the canvas. The predominating colors of the land are lush browns and greens, but the figures are almost invisible in their gray and ghostly shades.

The accompanying wall notes reveal that the artist, though born and raised in New York, felt the pull of her Cherokee ancestral land the first time she drove through the present-day Carolinas and Tennessee. In WalkingStick’s words, “It’s about the traumatic experience of leaving home—leaving this beautiful home.” The Trail of Tears is a reference to approximately 60,000 Native Americans that were forcibly exiled from their homeland after the Indian Removal Act in 1830.

A welcome inclusion in the exhibit is Four Portraits of North American Indians (1859) by Albert Bierstadt (1830-1902).  Known for his expansively rendered landscapes, these oil sketches are sensitively done during a trip he made through what was then Nebraska and Oregon territory. The belief at the time was that these indigenous cultures would disappear from the earth as a result of the white man’s Manifest Destiny.

Jesse Talbot’s Indian on a Cliff (ca 1840s) is another rare portrait wherein the artist manages to idealize his subject—an iconic Native figure gazing across the vastness of his territory. Talbot was a member of the Foreign Missionary Society, which opposed the government’s Indian Removal policies. 

A crowd-pleaser central to the exhibit is WalkingStick’s Niagara (2022).  Here, the artist puts the viewer at the brink of the falls, the water spilling across the twin panels, as much a majestic interpretation in its modernism as the earlier famed Realistic School. The Haudenosaunee pattern she imposes celebrates the original inhabitants. It would be hard to find a landscape more celebrated by white artists as “America,” but Walkingstick reclaims it with her indigenous markings.

What is the deeper reasoning behind these patterns upon landscape paintings that could well stand on their own?  The explanation is simple. The artist is merely reasserting an indigenous presence, long erased in European settlers’ depictions of North America as a pristine and unpopulated wilderness.  An informative and striking addition to the exhibit is a stoneware jar by Mohawk potter Steve Smith. Its Haudenosaunee pattern inspired the design WalkingStick used in Niagara.

A Louisa Davis Minot painting from 1818 is dotted by miniscule indigenous figures as identity markers hovering about the borders of the falls in her interpretation, but WalkingStick has replaced such stereotypes in her panels with the Haudenosaunee pattern.

In Saint Mary’s Mountain (2011), a geometric pattern prevails, inspired by Northen Cheyenne beadwork over the base of the mountain in present-day Montana. The pattern cleverly echoes the white-bordered lavender band running across the upswept mountain ridges, becoming an integral part of the composition.

In July Low Water (2010), WalkingStick gives equal weight to each portion of the picture plane, resulting in a certain flatness that rejects depth in favor of a happy, geometric pattern of color.

These mature landscape depictions hardly belie a mastery of other artistic forms. With Vermont Studio Center Creek III (1995), a striking abstraction on display, the artist sat in the middle of the river and mixed its water with sumi ink, replicating the rhythmic flow of her subject. Nearby, Asher B. Durand’s Catskill Study, NY (ca 1870) is a plein air work capturing the Northeastern region but with the objective of representing faithfully the subject, not “merely resembling it” in his words.

With such a rich panoply of artworks on display, it’s easy to be distracted from the long and impressive artistic trail of WalkingStick that precedes this single exhibition.  Admittedly, this “dialogue” between the centuries is an illuminating effort, but it is WalkingStick’s own commitment to the natural world and affinity to her racial heritage in her art that stands out.

Discouraged from showing with other Native artists by an early dealer, WalkingStick disregarded the advice, continuing to paint. In 1973, at age 38, she started commuting to graduate school at Pratt in New York, where she shifted to painting abstractly and began to reconcile her biracial identity. She has shown consistently in group and gallery exhibitions, while neglected by powerhouse institutions — until recently. 

The major breakthrough changed in her eighth decade, with the opening of her career retrospective in 2015 at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.   “I had to come to terms with this idea that I am as much my father’s daughter as my mother’s,” she has said.

Many of the country’s major art and cultural institutions have been rethinking their collections in an ongoing effort of reclamation of our diversified roots. This exhibition stands rather as a conversation between earlier depictions of the country’s arcadian wonderland from a white perspective and a contemporary Native American’s masterly and mature works. It’s an overdue exemplary tribute, and one that surpasses a merely “woke” nod to another indigenous artist.

According to WalkingStick, “I hope viewers will leave the museum with a renewed sense of how beautiful and precious our planet is . . . [and] with the realization that those of us living in the Western Hemisphere are all living on Indian Territory.”

This exhibit is on view at the New York Historical Society through April 14, 2024.

Author Bio:

Sandra Bertrand is Highbrow Magazine’s chief art critic.

For Highbrow Magazine

Image Credits: Sandra Bertrand

The curator of the 60th Venice Biennale, Adriano Pedrosa, has revealed his plans for the world’s most prestigious exhibition which launches in April. There are 331 artists in total in the main international exhibition, entitled Foreigners Everywhere, which takes place in a “world rife with crises concerning movement of people across borders”, Pedrosa said in a press briefing held this morning.

“Wherever you go, you will always encounter foreigners… no matter where you find yourself, you are always deep down inside a foreigner,” said Pedrosa. The thesis expresses “differences and disparities conditioned by [issues such as] race, sexuality and wealth etc.”, he added.

Pedrosa says that he feels his own experiences are reflected in the theme. “I have lived abroad and been fortunate to travel extensively,” he said, stressing that he has often been treated as a “third-world foreigner” even though he holds “one of the highest-ranking passports of the Global South. [Pedrosa is Brazilian]” Crucially, he said: “I also identify as queer, the first openly queer curator [of the Biennale].”

The theme especially takes on extra resonance in Venice, he added. “At one point, Venice was the most important centre for trade in Mediterranean. The population [today] consists of 50,000; this may reach 165,000 during peak seasons due to enormous numbers of tourists… foreigners of a privileged kind.”

He also said that the theme can be considered as “a call to action. This assumes critical significance around Europe when the number of forcibly displaced people hit its highest in 2022 at 108 million; this is expected to grow in 2023.”

The aesthetic thread underpinning the Biennale comes from the Paris-based collective Claire Fontaine who made a number of neon sculptures rendering the phrase “Stranieri Ovunque” or “Foreigners Everywhere” (the phrase initially derives from the name of a Turin collective who fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s). Several sculptures by Claire Fontaine will be shown around the Arsenale exhibition site (the former shipyards in Venice).

Indigenous artists will have a strong “emblematic” presence in the show, said Pedrosa. The Mahku collective, who come from the border of Brazil and Peru, will paint a monumental mural on the façade of the Central Pavilion in the Giardini. In the Arsenale, the Mataaho collective from New Zealand will present a large installation in the first room.

Queer artists will feature in one of the nucleo contemporaneo (contemporary nuclei) including Erica Rutherford; Isaac Chong Wai; Elyla; Violeta Quispe; Louis Fratino and Dean Sameshima. A room devoted to “queer abstraction” will feature works by China-born Evelyn Taocheng Wang.

There will also be a special section devoted to the Disobedience Archive, established by Marco Scotini which is described on the organisation’s website as a “user’s guide to four decades of social disobedience seen through history and geography”.

There will be a focus on textiles, with works by the Chilean sewing collective Bordadoras de Isla Negra as well as artists Dana Awartini, Frieda Toranzo-Jaeger, Liz Collins, Pacita Abad and Yinka Shonibare. A section also concentrates on “artists related by blood” including Susanne Wenger and her adopted son, Sangodare Gbadegesin Ajala. This part will also include Lorna Selim and Jewad Selim.

The Biennale will also feature a Nucleo Storico (historical nuclei), a section comprising works by 20th-century artists from Latin America, Africa, the Arab world, and Asia dating from 1905 to 1990. “European modernism travelled far beyond Europe throughout the 20th century, often intertwined with colonialism, and many artists in the Global South travelled to Europe to be exposed to it. Yet modernism was appropriated, devoured and cannibalised in the Global South, repeatedly taking on radically new shapes and forms in dialogue with local and indigenous references,” Pedrosa said earlier this year.

The Nucleo Storico will be divided into three sections: portraits, abstraction and the Italian diaspora which comprises one work per artist, spread across the Central Pavilion and the Arsenale. The portraits section will feature 112 artists including Selwyn Wilson, Cícero Dias, Yêdamaria, Laura Rodig, Rómulo Rozo, Inji Aflatoun, Grace Salome Kwami, Lee Quede and Gerard Sekoto.

“Abstraction” will feature Sandy Adsett, Fanny Sanín, Etel Adnan, Eduardo Terrazas and Samia Halaby. The section devoted to the worldwide Italian artistic diaspora in the 20th century features artists such as Lidy Prati, Nenne Sanguineti Poggi, Gianni Bertini and Lina Bo Bardi.

The outgoing president of the Biennale, Roberto Cicutto, highlighted the political dimension of the Venice Biennale. The last Biennale in 2022 was “prophetic given the tragic events over the past four years… [against the backdrop of] Russian aggression in Ukraine, the Hamas attack and the tragic consequences [of Israel’s bombardment] of the Gaza strip.” The Biennale is a “privileged vantage point [from which one] can curate the world”, he added. Cicutto is set to be replaced by the right-wing commentator Pietrangelo Buttafuoco.

Full list of invited artists

1. Pacita Abad

2. Mariam Abdel-Aleem

3. Etel Adnan

4. Sandy Adsett

5. Affandi

6. Zubeida Agha

7. Dia al-Azzawi

8. Claudia Alarcón & Silät

9. Rafa al-Nasiri

10. Miguel Alandia Pantoja

11. Aloïse

12. Giulia Andreani

13. Claudia Andujar

14. María Aranís Valdivia

15. Aravani Art Project

16. Iván Argote

17. Karimah Ashadu

18. Dana Awartani

19. Aycoobo (Wilson Rodríguez)

20. Margarita Azurdia

21. Leilah Babirye

22. Libero Badii

23. Ezekiel Baroukh

24. Baya

25. Aly Ben Salem

26. Semiha Berksoy

27. Gianni Bertini

28. Lina Bo Bardi

29. Maria Bonomi

30. Bordadoras de Isla Negra

31. Victor Brecheret

32. Huguette Caland

33. Sol Calero

34. Elda Cerrato

35. Mohammed Chebaa

36. Georgette Chen

37. Galileo Chini

38. Kudzanai Chiurai

39. Isaac Chong Wai

40. Saloua Raouda Choucair

41. Chaouki Choukini

42. Chua Mia Tee

43. Claire Fontaine

44. Manauara Clandestina

45. River Claure

46. Julia Codesido

47. Liz Collins

48. Jaime Colson

49. Waldemar Cordeiro

50. Monika Correa

51. Beatriz Cortez

52. Olga Costa

53. Miguel Covarrubias

54. Victor Juan Cúnsolo

55. Andrés Curruchich

56. Rosa Elena Curruchich

57. Djanira da Motta e Silva

58. Olga De Amaral

59. Filippo de Pisis

60. Juan Del Prete

61. Pablo Delano

62. Emiliano Di Cavalcanti

63. Danilo Di Prete

64. Cícero Dias

65 – 104. Disobedience Archive – Marco Scotini

with Ursula Biemann, Black Audio-Film Collective, Seba Calfuqueo, Simone Cangelosi, Cinéastes pour les sans-papiers, Critical Art Ensemble, Snow Hnin Ei Hlaing, Marcelo Expósito, Maria Galindo & Mujeres Creando, Barbara Hammer, mixrice, Khaled Jarrar, Sara Jordenö, Bani Khoshnoudi, Maria Kourkouta & Niki Giannari, Pedro Lemebel, LIMINAL & Border Forensics, Angela Melitopoulos, Jota Mombaça, Carlos Motta, Zanele Muholi, Pınar Öğrenci, Daniela Ortiz, Thunska Pansittivorakul, Anand Patwardhan, Pilot TV Collective, Queerocracy, Oliver Ressler and Zanny Begg, Carole Roussopoulos, Güliz Sağlam, Irwan Ahmett & Tita Salina, Tejal Shah, Chi Yin Sim, Hito Steyerl, Sweatmother, Raphaël Grisey and Bouba Touré, Nguyễn Trinh Thi, James Wentzy, Želimir Žilnik

105. Juana Elena Diz

106. Tarsila do Amaral

107. Saliba Douaihy

108. Dullah

109. Inji Efflatoun

110. Uzo Egonu

111. Mohammad Ehsaei

112. Hatem El Mekki

113. Aref El Rayess

114. Ibrahim El-Salahi

115. Elyla

116. Ben Enwonwu

117. Romany Eveleigh

118. Hamed Ewais

119. Dumile Feni

120. Alessandra Ferrini

121. Cesare Ferro Milone

122. Raquel Forner

123. Simone Forti

124. Victor Fotso Nyie

125. Louis Fratino

126. Paolo Gasparini

127. Sàngódáre Gbádégesin Àjàlá

128. Umberto Giangrandi

129. Madge Gill

130. Marlene Gilson

131. Luigi Domenico Gismondi

132. Domenico Gnoli

133. Gabrielle Goliath

134. Brett Graham

135. Fred Graham

136. Enrique Grau Araújo

137. Oswaldo Guayasamín

138. Nedda Guidi

139. Hendra Gunawan

140. Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic

141. Marie Hadad

142. Samia Halaby

143. Tahia Halim

144. Lauren Halsey

145. Nazek Hamdi

146. Mohamed Hamidi

147. Faik Hassan

148. Kadhim Hayder

149. Gilberto Hernández Ortega

150. Carmen Herrera

151. Evan Ifekoya

152. Julia Isídrez

153. Mohammed Issiakhem

154. Elena Izcue Cobián

155. María Izquierdo

156. Nour Jaouda

157. Rindon Johnson

158. Joyce Joumaa*

159. Mohammed Kacimi

160. Frida Kahlo

161. Nazira Karimi*

162. George Keyt

163. Bhupen Khakhar

164. Bouchra Khalili

165. Kiluanji Kia Henda

166. Linda Kohen

167. Shalom Kufakwatenzi

168. Ram Kumar

169. Fred Kuwornu

170. Grace Salome Kwami

171. Lai Foong Moi

172. Wifredo Lam

173. Judith Lauand

174. Maggie Laubser

175. Simon Lekgetho

176. Celia Leyton Vidal

177. Lim Mu Hue

178. Romualdo Locatelli

179. Bertina Lopes

180. Amadeo Luciano Lorenzato

181. Anita Magsaysay-Ho

182. MAHKU (Movimento dos Artistas Huni Kuin)

183. Esther Mahlangu

184. Anna Maria Maiolino

185. Anita Malfatti

186. Ernest Mancoba

187. Edna Manley

188. Josiah Manzi

189. Teresa Margolles

190. Maria Martins

191. María Martorell

192. Mataaho Collective

193. Naminapu Maymuru-White

194. Mohamed Melehi

195. Carlos Mérida

196. Gladys Mgudlandlu

197. Omar Mismar

198. Sabelo Mlangeni

199. Tina Modotti

200. Bahman Mohasses

201. Roberto Montenegro

202. Camilo Mori Serrano

203. Ahmed Morsi

204. Effat Naghi

205. Ismael Nery

206. Malangatana Valente Ngwenya

207. Paula Nicho

208. Costantino Nivola

209. Taylor Nkomo

210. Marina Núñez del Prado

211. Philomé Obin

212. Sénèque Obin

213. Alejandro Obregón

214. Tomie Ohtake

215. Uche Okeke

216. Marco Ospina

217. Samia Osseiran Junblatt

218. Daniel Otero Torres

219. Lydia Ourahmane

220. Pan Yuliang

221. Dalton Paula

222. Amelia Peláez

223. George Pemba

224. Fulvio Pennacchi

225. Claudio Perna

226. Emilio Pettoruti

227. Lê Phổ

228. Bona Pieyre De Mandiargues

229. Ester Pilone

230. La Chola Poblete

231. Charmaine Poh

232. Maria Polo

233. Candido Portinari

234. Sandra Poulson*

235. B. Prabha

236. Lidy Prati

237. Puppies Puppies (Jade Guanaro Kuriki-Olivo)

238. Lee Qoede

239. Agnes Questionmark*

240. Violeta Quispe

241. Alfredo Ramos Martinez

242. Sayed Haider Raza

243. Armando Reverón

244. Emma Reyes

245. Diego Rivera

246. Juana Marta Rodas

247. Laura Rodig Pizarro

248. Abel Rodríguez

249. Aydeé Rodriguez Lopez

250. Freddy Rodriguez

251. Miguel Ángel Rojas

252. Rosa Rolanda

253. Jamini Roy

254. Rómulo Rozo

255. Erica Rutherford

256. José Sabogal

257. Mahmoud Sabri

258. Syed Sadequain

259. Nena Saguil

260. Mahmoud Saïd

261. Kazuya Sakai

262. Ione Saldanha

263. Dean Sameshima

264. Zilia Sánchez

265. Bárbara Sánchez-Kane

266. Nenne Sanguineti Poggi

267. Fanny Sanín

268. Aligi Sassu

269. Greta Schödl

270. Ana Segovia

271. Gerard Sekoto

272. Jewad Selim

273. Lorna Selim

274. Joshua Serafin

275. Kang Seung Lee

276. Gino Severini

277. Amrita Sher-Gil

278. Anwar Jalal Shemza

279. Yinka Shonibare

280. Doreen Sibanda

281. Fadjar Sidik

282. Gazbia Sirry

283. Lucas Sithole

284. Francis Newton Souza

285. Joseph Stella

286. Irma Stern

287. Leopold Strobl

288. Emiria Sunassa

289. Superflex

290. Armodio Tamayo

291. Maria Taniguchi

292. Evelyn Taocheng Wang

293. Lucy Tejada

294. Mariana Telleria

295. Güneş Terkol

296. Eduardo Terrazas

297. Clorindo Testa

298. Salman Toor

299. Frieda Toranzo Jaeger

300. Horacio Torres

301. Joaquin Torres-Garcìa

302. Mario Tozzi

303. Twins Seven Seven

304. Ahmed Umar

305. Unidentified Chilean women artists, Arpillera

306. Rubem Valentim

307. Edoardo Daniele Villa

308. Eliseu Visconti

309. Alfredo Volpi

310. Kay WalkingStick

311. WangShui

312. Agnes Waruguru

313. Barrington Watson

314. Osmond Watson

315. Susanne Wenger

316. Emmi Whitehorse

317. Selwyn Wilson

318. Chang Woosoung

319. Celeste Woss y Gil

320. Xiyadie

321. Rember Yahuarcani

322. Santiago Yahuarcani

323. Nil Yalter

324. Joseca Mokahesi Yanomami

325. André Taniki Yanomami

326. Yêdamaria

327. Ramses Younan

328. Kim YunShin

329. Fahrelnissa Zeid

330. Anna Zemánková

331. Bibi Zogbé

TSAILE, Ariz. — At 23, Ian Teller already has an impressive résumé under his sash, with a business degree from Fort Lewis College and Master’s in music industry from University of Southern California.

The Tsaile native grew up loving film, and posted Vlogs of his travels. After a gig with the New Mexico Indigenous Youth Council, his videos transformed into documentaries of notable Indigenous performance artists.

Today, Teller’s interviewees include Native artists and politicians alike, including former Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez, Attorney General Ethel Branch and comedian James June. He has over 21,000 followers on TikTok, posting short, funny clips of experiences being Navajo.

He is Tódích’íínii (Bitter Water clan) born for Kinyaa’áanii. His maternal grandfather is Ma’íí Deeshgiizhnii and paternal grandfather is Tó aheedlíínii.

Teller hopes to increase Indigenous representation in the entertainment industry. He has had music and media partnerships with Warner Bros, Grammy U and Jay-Z’s entertainment company, Roc Nation.

Now, Teller has been chosen as a 2024 Native Youth Leader Champion for Change with the Center for Native American Youth. Each year, the program selects five Native youth as Champions for Change, helping them develop as young leaders through experience-based learning and culturally tailored advocacy training.

Teller is excited to meet the other members of the cohort in Washington D.C. in February. The cohort members include Wambli Quintana, Navajo and Cheyenne River Sioux, Tayler Higgins, of the Seldovia Village Tribe, Sage Phillips, of the Penobscot Nation and Jeidah DeZurney, of the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians.

The Navajo-Hopi Observer talked to Teller about his new partnership, social media fame, and dreams of working in the film and music industries.

What will you be doing as a Native Youth Leader?

The Center for Native American Youth is giving us a new platform to share our work. They are also sharing resources communities. Our hopes are that in partnership we can produce a number of projects throughout our year as Champions.

What shows and movies did you grow up watching and are you fond of today?

Well, growing up I was always fascinated with sci-fi, fantasy and similar genres so, I spent much of my time watching Marvel and Star Wars movies. Today if I’m being honest I still haven’t lost interest in those films, but I have to say some of my favorite films and series today are those like “Reservation Dogs,” “Prey” and “Killers of the Flower Moon.”

What was your experience with Indigenous representation on the screen? Do you think there is a lack of representation behind the screen as well as in front?

When I was younger the only times I would see Natives on screen were in western films and today we live in a world where Lily Gladstone has just become the first woman of Native American descent to be nominated for an Oscar. I think that says a lot about how far Natives have come in the industry, but there is still room for Native-centered stories, created and produced by Native people to be shared.

Tell me about your music style and which artists you gravitate toward? Do you plan to start up your own music?

I personally like more R&B, pop and Zach Bryan country, which I feel is its own style. Naturally, I gravitate to artists like Jungkook, Zack Bryan, Childish Gambino. I feel more comfortable in positions that allow me to support artists, which means I don’t necessarily plan on being an artist. I won’t say it’s impossible but I’d much rather manage or support Native artists in navigating the music industry.

I’m curious about your names: Ian Teller and Ian Dawn. Why did you decide to have a stage name and what do you use one versus the other for?

I have made the decision very recently to only use my real name, Ian Teller. For a while there I think I used a stage name as a sort of confidence mechanism. When I started to put content online I was honestly very shy and so something about having a stage name made me more confident. But as of recently, Ian Teller is just fine.

How did you get to attend awards shows? Were you star struck? Any funny moments?

A few lucky moments and some good memberships. I got to attend the American Music Awards as a seat filler, which was such a fun process and crazy experience. I have gone to Grammy related events as a member of the student organization GrammyU.

Both times I got to be in the same room as amazing, incredible artists and its really hard not to get starstruck. I mean especially when your sitting a few seats over from the biggest boy band in the world, BTS. Going alone to the AMA’s as someone who at the time had just moved to Los Angeles was really stressful and I’m pretty sure I got lost several times on my way. Which is funny now but at the time very stressful.

When did you become interested in Navajo politics?

I have always been interested in not only tribal but federal politics from a young age. In high school (Navajo Prep class of 2018) I was apart of the nerdy cliques who would dress like tribal councilmen at the age of 16. I did a lot of student council and speech and debate, which really peaked my interest in that line of work.

How do you make politics fun and interesting to your younger viewers on TikTok?

Having seen what elections mean in this country I wanted to get more involved and make people more engaged in election processes, especially in tribal elections which don’t get the best coverage. My approach to creating election content for my generation is through humor. Drawing inspiration from late-night hosts, I think comedy is an opportunity to laugh about serious issues while also making people aware of the same issues.

What do you think really got people talking and making your social media as popular as it is today?

Well, I think my content popularity really coincided with the 2022 Navajo Nation presidential election. I remember the moment I made that first election coverage video, which was really just a reaction to the candidates and their forums. That form of comedic commentary on the election I think made people laugh and really reconsider which candidates they backed.

I love the video of you asking passerbys about Native American tribes. What prompted this?
(video link)

Well, it was after a non-Native friend called me “exotic” and a professor at University of Southern California continued to call me “Indian” after I corrected her countless times to at least say “American Indian.” I think my exposure to just the sheer lack of knowledge the general public have about Native people made me want to just share some of that ignorance. It ended up being one of my best videos, I think because it made people really think, like, “Hmm, maybe I should know more about my country’s original inhabitants.”

Now that you are living outside the reservation, do you notice a general lack of Indigenous knowledge?

Oh, yes. Having lived off the reservation and even traveling abroad I have learned there is little knowledge about Native people and their cultures. Which, I think, says a lot about American education systems.

You have done so much already at 23. What are your big goals for the future?

I have an abundance of plans and at times it’s overwhelming because I fear whether or not they are achievable. However, I have plans to follow in the footsteps of great filmmakers and actors, like Lily Gladstone. I want to create powerful films about my culture and my people that aim to preserve and protect our way of life. I also want to start my own production company, aiming to achieve those set goals. Who knows, maybe one day I pray I get to walk across that Oscar stage myself.

Additionally, I want to go back to school and pick up a few more degrees. When that’ll happen I’m not sure but it is on the agenda. Although, with all these plans I like to take it one step at a time.

Links to Teller’s social media accounts can be found at at http://linktr.ee/iandawn.

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