Indigenous fashion has seen a surge in public interest of late, with high-profile runway shows and exhibitions popping up across North America. But with this spike in attention, inevitably, comes controversy, as Native fashion continues to be appropriated by major houses and designers, from Victoria’s Secret to Jean Paul Gaultier. Can efforts to counter these trends be described as decolonization? Or should we sidestep that trending term altogether and focus on Indigenizing the industry instead? In a Soundboard edition inspired by the Walker’s June 13 Indigenous Spirit: Gender Fluid Fashion show, we asked four voices in Native fashion to tackle these questions.
New Postcommodity Codex Investigates Land, Systemic Violence, and Minnesota History
Taking its title from the GPS coordinates for Bdote, the birthplace of the Dakota people, Postcommodity's newest artwork is a codex, a pictographic story, examining the Twin Cities's past and present in terms of its relationship to migration, violence to the land, and Indigenous sovereignty. A Walker Reader exclusive, 44.8968° N, 93.1501° W continues thinking by the Indigenous collective from its 2017 Artist Op-Ed, a poetic examination of migration, "nativism," and the year 2043, when whites in the United States are projected to become a statistical minority.
"I believe that fashion makes people happy; it allows people to let others know about themselves by the way they look and dress. Hairstyles, makeup, fragrance, tattoos: it’s more than just clothing," says designer Delina White of IAmAnishinaabe. This lookbook—showcasing fashions and models featured in our June Indigenous Spirit: Gender Fluid Fashion show—celebrates designs that honor Native tradition, diversity, and nonconformity as imagined through the Anishinaabe term Niizho-Manidoog: the sacred embodiment of two genders.
Delina White: Celebrating Gender Nonconformity in Indigenous Fashion
"As Natives, we are underrepresented. It’s my philosophy to represent all people in our community." In advance of Indigenous Spirit: Gender Fluid Fashion, a June 13 showcase of designs by Delina White of IAmAnishinaabe, Minneapolis-based, Lakota-born non-binary artist Juleana Enright caught up with the White to chat about the future of Indigenous fashion and the inspiration behind this gender-fluid collection.
How Can Contemporary Art Be More Inclusive of Native Voices?
Why is Jimmie Durham the artist—or, at least, one of very few artists—selected for a major touring retrospective? Why isn’t more art by Native Americans collected, contextualized, and presented by major institutions? And why is there so little representation—both within museum staffs and in the critical art press that covers them—of Native American, First Nations, and indigenous peoples? In a recent Skype conversation, a panel of Native artists and thinkers—Kathleen Ash-Milby, Jeffrey Gibson, Luzene Hill, Dyani White Hawk, and Candessa Tehee—address these questions.
During this artist talk, Postcommodity members Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, and Kade L. Twist discuss Repellent Fence, their practice of community-engaged land art, and themes in "2043: No Es Un Sueño," the newest contribution to the Walker's ongoing Artist Op-Ed series. Melding prose and poetry, the trio’s essay offers a powerful reflection on native self-determination, ethnic and national identity, and the year when whites become a minority in the Americas.
