In honor of Indigenous Peoples' Day, seven exhibitions in Manhattan and Long Island offer a glimpse into the rich tapestry of Native history and futurity. Artists like Jeremy Dennis, Shelley Niro and Sarah Sense use their work to challenge narratives of dispossession and irrelevance, while celebrating traditional art forms. From Manhattan's Garth Greenan Gallery, where Cannupa Hanska Luger explores the horror of colonialism through blackened animal sculptures, to Shelley Niro's playful and poignant portraits at Hales Gallery, these shows provide a nuanced perspective on Indigenous identity. Across solo and group presentations, the featured artists bring underrepresented histories to the forefront, emphasizing survivance and resilience.
Among the exhibitions is Cannupa Hanska Luger's American Traditional, which features uniform matte-black works, including a skinned bison with a bifurcated skull, symbolizing the manipulation of collective memory. Meanwhile, Shelley Niro's In Her Lifetime reinterprets her iconic photos from the early 1990s with hand-painted elements, adding a cheeky assertiveness to her family portrayals.
Other notable shows include Sarah Sense's work at Hessel Museum of Art, which charts the intersection of Indigenous history and futurity, and Jeremy Dennis's exploration of Native survival and futurity at Long Island Museum in Stony Brook. These exhibitions offer a comprehensive view of Indigenous survivance, from the past to the present and beyond.







