Exhibition of Indigenous art from North America at Hudson River Museum
The Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, NY presents a groundbreaking new exhibition, Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time, on view from February 14–August 31, 2025 in the Hudson River Museum’s West Wing. This exhibition explores the nuanced layers of the past, present, and future within contemporary art by Native American, Alaska Native, First Nations, and Métis artists.
The 27 works on view highlight some of the most influential Native artists working over the last sixty years, with many of these works never before exhibited on the East Coast. Together, these artists—including Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe), Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂), James Luna (Payómkawichum, Ipai, and Mexican), and Marie Watt (Seneca and German-Scot)—carry forward the artistic lineages of their ancestors while simultaneously sparking new visions for the future.
Smoke in Our Hair, curated by independent curator Sháńdíín Brown (Diné) and debuting at the Hudson River Museum, explores Indigenous understandings of time that are cyclical and relational, in contrast to Western perceptions of time that are often linear and commodified. The intersection of memory and time in contemporary Native artistic practices reveals how temporality shapes perceptions of self, culture, and reality, as well as how the past is remembered and reimagined.
The works in this exhibition are drawn from the collections of Art Bridges, the Forge Project, and the Gochman Family Collection.
The title of the exhibition references the poem “Smoke in Our Hair” by Ofelia Zepeda (Tohono O’odham). Using smoke as a metaphor for memories, Zepeda reminds us of the fluidity of Native memory, while pointing to its enduring intensity as it reaches the conscious and unconscious mind. She writes:
“Smoke, like memories, permeates our hair,
our clothing, our layers of skin.
The smoke travels deep
to the seat of memory.
We walk away from the fire;
no matter how far we walk,
we carry this scent with us.”
“Poetry was a guiding force in shaping the themes of this exhibition, particularly ‘Smoke in Our Hair’ by Ofelia Zepeda (Tohono O’odham) and ‘Memory Sack’ by Joy Harjo (Mvskoke),” Brown said. “Together, art and writing offer crucial ways to explore Native perspectives on existence and remembrance, inviting us to contemplate our understandings of time, memory, and identity.”
The exhibition is organized in three main sections—wood, fire, and smoke—and each gallery space references and reveals different elements of cycles. Through diverse media, including installation, sculpture, painting, and textiles, the artists manipulate materials and spaces, giving form to the intangible. These artists offer critical reflections on working between those who came before them and those who will come after.
In exploring interrelationships of memory and Indigenous understandings of time, the exhibition brings renewed focus to the artists’ practices in regard to intentionality, design, and materiality. The included works reference artists’ personal memory, ancestral artistic practices, history, and Indigenous futurism.
Featured artists
Saif Azzuz (Libyan-Yurok)
Teresa Baker (Mandan/Hidatsa)
Nikyle Begay (Diné)
Andrea Carlson (Grand Portage Ojibwe)
Beau Dick (Kwakwaka’wakw, Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw First Nation)
Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂)
Ishi Glinsky (Tohono O’odham)
Gabrielle L’Hirondelle Hill (Métis)
Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians)
G. Peter Jemison (Enrolled member of the Seneca Nation of Indians, Heron Clan)
Sonya Kelliher-Combs (Iñupiaq and Athabascan)
Matthew Kirk (Navajo)
Kite (Oglala Sioux Tribe)
James Luna (Payómkawichum, Ipai, and Mexican)
Dakota Mace (Diné)
George Morrison (Ojibwe)
Eric-Paul Riege (Diné)
Cara Romero (Chemehuevi)
Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena and Jewish)
Marie Watt (Seneca and German-Scot)
Tania Willard (Secwépemc)
Lawrence Paul Yuxweluptun (Coast Salish and Okanagan (Syilx))
Featured Programs
Sunday, March 9, 2pm: Curator Tour of Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time
Join Sháńdíín Brown, curator of Smoke in Our Hair: Native Memory and Unsettled Time, for an in-depth tour of the exhibition. Brown will guide guests through its three thematic sections—Wood, Smoke, and Fire—while exploring how Indigenous perspectives on time are cyclical, relational, and unifying. The tour will highlight how the works draw on personal memory, ancestral artistic practices, history, and Indigenous futurism.
