Please join us for a stimulating salon-style discussion and cocktail reception featuring artists Jontay Kahm (Plains Cree) and Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, MA (Siksika Nation) from the Autry’s upcoming exhibition Future Imaginaries: Indigenous Art, Fashion, Technology opening September 7, 2024. The exhibition's curator and the Autry’s Vice President of Research and Interpretation, Amy Scott will moderate an artist discussion with leadership remarks by the Autry’s President and CEO, Stephen Aron.  

About the Artists

Jontay Kahm's work seamlessly blends his Plains Cree roots with contemporary fashion. He incorporates subtle elements of ceremonial regalia and expresses them through a modern lens, inspiring the worlds of fashion and art. His work deeply intertwines his personal experiences with themes of life, death, and the afterlife, transcending traditional notions of haute couture and drawing from his cultural heritage. Fashion curator and art historian Amber-Dawn Bear Robe recently produced the Indigenous Couture & Native Fashion Week in Santa Fe in May 2024 and the annual SWAIA fashion shows showcasing the diversity of Indigenous designers. Amber-Dawn is the fashion curator for the upcoming Autry exhibition Future Imaginaries and Assistant Faculty of Native Art History in the Museum Studies department at IAIA and Fashion Show Program Director for the SWAI in Santa Fe.

About the Exhibition 

Future Imaginaries explores the rise of Futurism in contemporary Indigenous art as a means of enduring colonial trauma, creating alternative futures and advocating for Indigenous technologies in a more inclusive present and sustainable future. Artists such as Andy Everson, Ryan Singer and Neil Ambrose Smith wittily upend pop-culture icons by Indigenizing sci-fi characters and storylines; Wendy Red Star places Indigenous people in surreal spacescapes wearing fantastical regalia; Virgil Ortiz brings his own space odyssey, ReVOlt 1680/2180, to life in a new, site-specific installation. By intermingling science fiction, self-determination, and Indigenous technologies across a diverse array of Native cultures, Future Imaginaries envisions sovereign futures while countering historical myths and the ongoing impact of colonization, including environmental degradation and toxic stereotypes.