Catalyst’s Exhibitions Steward and Materials Caretaker, and co-founder of Relative Arts NYC, joins Relative Arts co-founder Liana Shewey (Mvskoke) in a celebration of Indigenous resilience, cultural preservation, and creative collaboration.
In this two-part event, Emmerich (Puyallup) and Shewey lead a conversation exploring Indigenous fashion, community-building, and intergenerational knowledge-sharing through the lens of contemporary artistry, followed by a hands-on quilting workshop inspired by Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time. The talk highlights Relative Arts NYC’s representation of more than 50 Indigenous artists working in fashion, poetry, music, and visual art. Emmerich and Shewey discuss Indigenous presence in urban spaces, intertribal solidarity, and how artists honor ancestral traditions while imagining Indigenous futures.
Following the conversation, all are invited to hand-stitch fabric squares for inclusion in Then a Cunning Voice, an ongoing global community quilt project led by Yu’pik artist Emily Johnson / Catalyst, following a design by Fond du Lac Ojibwe textile artist Maggie Thompson.