Upcoming

Contemporary Native American and First Nations Art

27.9.2025 – 1.2.2026

In these artworks, the artists depict history, culture, humor, spirituality, indigenous lifeways, nature, and environmental concerns. The artists come from several different tribes and geographic areas. 

In Alajärvi, this exhibition is part of a broader project with two exhibitions, artist residencies, an online artists roundtable which will be an opportunity to foster communication and collaboration amongst indigenous artists from throughout the Arctic Nations.

exhibition artists:

Linda Lomahaftewa (Hopi-Choctaw ); Jaune Quick-to-See Smith (enrolled member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes and is also of Métis and Shoshone descent); Julie Buffalohead (Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma); Larry McNeil (Tlingit and Nisga);  Cannupa Hanska Luger (Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and is Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Lakota); Meryl McMaster ( Canadian artist with nêhiyaw (Plains Cree), Métis, British and Dutch ancestry)

• Cannupa Hanska Luger’s Future Ancestral Technologies which he describes as indigenous science fiction, utilizes installation, video and land-based narratives, interconnectedness of humans and land.
• Jaune Quick-to-see Smith (whose work was the subject of a 2023 retrospective Memory Map at the Whitney Museum of American Art) utilizes storytelling to demonstrate the ways we are connected to other living beings and elements with humor, warmth, and concern.
• Larry McNeil often takes a humorous perspective on perceptions of Native Americans within the larger culture. He also addresses issues of climate change and environmental degradation.
• Julie Buffalohead uses animal tricksters anthropomorphically to metaphorically represent human issues, sometimes her own, within traditional stories and motifs.
• Meryl McMaster explores lineage and the relationship of self to the land.
• Linda Lomahaftewa was in the first class of students at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), where she taught for over 40 years. Her artworks combine symbols, animal, and plant motifs and however abstracted are oriented to land and sky.