Heidi K. Brandow (Diné and Kānaka Maoli) is an artist whose work prioritizes the inclusion of Indigenous people and perspectives in creating ethical and sustainable forms of creative engagement and artistic expression. Through her creative practice, Brandow explores themes of displacement, cultural identity, and colonialism’s impacts through the lens of the Kanaka Maoli and Diné peoples. Through her art, Brandow engages in social commentary and cultural reflection to spark conversations and raise awareness on vital issues.

As a Harvard Indigenous Design Collective co-founder, Brandow emphasizes Indigenous perspectives in design and advocates for their inclusion in the field’s global discourse. She also contributes as a Master Artist Mentor at the Institute of American Indian Arts, guiding the next generation of artists. Brandow’s roles with the Coe Center for Art, Santa Fe, NM, highlight her commitment to Indigenous empowerment and cultural material reclamation.

Anna Hoover (Norwegian and Unangax̂) is an artist who creates a vision for the future. Through the work of writing and directing film, Hoover shows us the places that remain where humanity strives for balance with our ancestors in the natural world, where Indigenous community knowledge is the foundation for growth. Nationally and internationally, Hoover has worked with and screened her art at the International Sami Film Institute, imagineNATIVE, Berlinale Native, Northwest Filmmakers, MoCNA, Maoriland, and multiple International Indigenous artist gatherings, BBC Earth, and the UNCOP26. Hoover is a mother, fisherwoman, pilot, and community activist. She is a writer for the twice Emmy-nominated PBS animated children’s television show Molly of Denali. Hoover strongly asserts intergenerational.

Dylan McLaughlin (Diné) is a multidisciplinary artist looking critically at the ecologies of extraction and threatened ecosystems. He weaves Diné mythology, ecological data, and environmental histories while holding space for complexity. What transpires is the sonification of relationships to land through experimental music composition and improvised performance. In his multi-media installation and performative works, he looks to engage the poetics and politics of human relations to land. He is a recipient of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation LIFT award and has done residencies at Mass MoCA, BOXO Projects, Slow Research Lab, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He received his BFA in New Media Art from the Institute of American Indian Arts, and his MFA in Art & Ecology from the University of New Mexico. He is currently an Early Career Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Andrea Carlson (Anishiaabe) is an artist from Chicago, Illinois, and her ancestral Ojibwe homeland in Grand Marais, Minnesota. Carlson’s practice includes painting, drawing, and arts writing on subjects ranging from museum studies to assimilation metaphors in film. Her work can be found in collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, Denver Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and National Gallery of Canada. She has received awards from the Joan Mitchell Foundation (2016), Chicago Artadia Award (2020), US Artists Fellowship (2021), and Creative Capital (2024). Carlson is a co-founder of the Center for Native Futures which sits on Potawatomi land in Chicago, Illinois.

Tanya Lukin Linklater’s (Sugpiaq) artistic practice spans video, sculpture, and dance in museums. Sensation, embodied inquiry, scores, rehearsal, and being in relation (to ancestral belongings, communities, and weather) structure her work. Her recent exhibitions include the 14th Gwangju Biennale, South Korea; Aichi Triennale, Japan; Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver; New Museum Triennial, New York; Remai Modern, Saskatoon; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and Toronto Biennial of Art. In 2024, Kelly Kivland curated a survey exhibition of Lukin Linklater’s work from the last ten years as well as new commissions presented at the Wexner Center for the Arts. Her book, Slow Scrape (2nd edition, Talonbooks, Vancouver, 2022), draws on documentary poetics, concrete-based installations, event scores, and can be read alongside her practice of choreography. Completing her PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen’s University in 2023, her doctoral writing emphasized weather, embodiment, and materiality while theorizing Indigenous performance. She has taught at IAIA’s MFA in Studio Arts low-residency program since 2021. Her Sugpiaq homelands are in southwestern Alaska. 

Jordan Poorman Cocker (Kiowa and Tonga) Jordan Poorman Cocker is a curator, artist, and an enrolled member of the Kiowa Tribe of Oklahoma. Cocker’s artistic and intellectual kinship is rooted in her Toyebo and Dohausan family legacies of Kiowa beadwork. Her curatorial practice centers on Indigenous research methodologies prioritizing reciprocity, sustained collaboration, and tribal sovereignty. She holds a Master of Museum and Heritage Practice from Victoria University of Wellington and a Bachelor of Design from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. She currently serves as the Curator of Indigenous Art at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Before her appointment, Cocker served as the 2020 –2022 Henry Luce Foundation Curatorial Scholar of Indigenous Art at the Gilcrease Museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. She is the 2021–25 Terra Foundation guest co-curator of Indigenous Art at the Block Museum of Art. She is an artist mentor for the Institute of American Indian Art’s Master of Fine Arts in Studio Arts program.  strategies in her approach to storytelling and art art-making and instruction.