Arts / event
'250 Years, Indigenous Futures' Brings Jamie Okuma, Sky Hopinka and Six More Native Artists to San Francisco
The Haines Gallery exhibition brings together eight artists across painting, beadwork, photography and film, with free admission through Nov. 7.
250 Years, Indigenous Futures, a group exhibition of eight Native American artists, is on view at Haines Gallery in San Francisco through Nov. 7.
It brings together Victoria Grace Canby, Jordan Ann Craig, Sky Hopinka, Brad Kahlhamer, Terran Last Gun, Jamie Okuma, Wendy Red Star and Keith Secola, working across painting, drawing, sculpture, photography and film. Haines says the exhibition responds to the United States' 250th anniversary without commemorating it, treating 1776 as one moment within much longer histories of Indigenous presence. Its title comes from the writings of Standing Rock Sioux historian Philip J. Deloria and his colleagues.
The artists
Okuma is Luiseno, Shoshone-Bannock, Wailaki and Okinawan, and an enrolled member of the La Jolla band of Indians. Her beaded handbag Of Love and Sacrifice: Motherhood (2026) uses single-stitch beadwork on brain-tanned deerskin to depict two figures from Luca Guadagnino's 2018 film Suspiria. The gallery reads it as a portrait of maternal love.
Sky Hopinka, of the Ho-Chunk Nation and the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, shows his film Sunflower Siege Engine (2022). It connects the Indians of All Tribes' 1969 to 1971 occupation of nearby Alcatraz Island with Illinois' Cahokia Mounds.
Keith Secola, who is Northern Ute and Anishinaabe, screen-prints archival portraits of Native Americans onto the covers of vintage books, and his subjects often look straight back at the camera. His Wounds Many (2019) is in the show.
Wendy Red Star, who is Apsáalooke, shows works from her The (HUD) series. They focus on the colorful houses built through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Montana's Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation, where she was raised, in colors chosen by a government agency rather than the people who live there.
Brad Kahlhamer, who has Native American ancestry, shows Pima Air + Space (2025), one of his recent paintings on bedsheets, with a wire-and-bell work from his Dreamcatcher series.
Terran Last Gun, who is Piikani/Blackfeet, made a suite of new drawings for the exhibition on early 20th-century ledger paper, drawing on the geometric designs of Piikani painted lodges.
Jordan Ann Craig, who is Northern Cheyenne, paints exacting fields of color and form. Her paintings, including Miss Your Musk (2024), draw on Northern Cheyenne beadwork and quillwork.
Victoria Grace Canby, who is Diné, made three new drawings of the Three Sisters, corn, beans and squash, which she grows in her own garden and draws from life. "These plants heal," she says in the gallery's description of the work.
Admission is free. Haines Gallery is in Building C at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, 2 Marina Blvd. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.
