Join the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) for the opening reception of our 2022 summer/fall exhibitions Art of Indigenous Fashion, Athena LaTocha: Mesabi Redux, and Matrilineal: Legacies of Our Mothers on Friday, August 19, from 5–7 pm (MDT). Museum visitors are encouraged to dress in their finest and funkiest fashions.

The Art of Indigenous Fashion (August 19, 2022—January 8, 2023) offers insights into the approaches and perspectives of Indigenous fashion designers beyond the visual and material qualities of their work. Indigenous designers have been fashioning clothing and personal adornment for millennia and can be considered the original haute couture artists of the Americas. Over twenty leading contemporary Indigenous designers from Canada and the United States have been brought together in this show.

Matrilineal: Legacies of Our Mothers (July 29, 2022–January 15, 2023) features the art and fashion design of three generations of Mvskoke (Creek) mothers and daughters from the Fife family. The Fife family of artists work individually in various styles and media, including shell carving, painting, and sculptural textile work, and they collaborate as fashion designers. Several members of the family have ties to Santa Fe and IAIA. Founded in 1976, The Fife Collection incorporates Southeastern Indigenous motifs in an innovative clothing line.

Athena LaTocha: Mesabi Redux (June 10–December 25, 2022) presents work created by artist Athena Latocha (Standing Rock Lakota and Keweenaw Bay Ojibwe) during a month-long residency coordinated by the MacRostie Art Center in Grand Rapids, MN, and supported by the Minnesota Museum of Mining in Chisholm, MN. While on-site at iron deposits in the Mesabi Mountain Range, Atocha cast relief sculptures by pouring molten iron freestyle into beds of sand, creating a series that considers the impacts mining has upon nature, society, and culture.

For more information, please visit iaia.edu/mocna or contact IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) Chief Curator Manuela Well-Off-Man at manuela.well-off-man@iaia.edu.