PNCA Alumni Featured in New York Times Article
April 30, 2021
The recent New York Times article “10 Queer Indigenous Artists on Where Their Inspirations Have Led Them” features two PNCA alumni - Demian DinéYazhi' ‘13 and Lehuauakea ‘18 – speaking to their influences and artistic practices in the wake of a global pandemic and multiple social and political movements.
Including excerpts from interviews with 10 queer Indigenous individuals from across North America, reporters Samuel Rutter and Caitlin Youngquist examine how the past year has “underscored our country’s long history of violence” and the “myriad atrocities perpetuated against Indigenous people in what we now call America.”
“I’m a transdisciplinary artist, and my practice is concept drive,” DinéYazhi' says in the article. “Of course, these are Western terms taught by the art school industrial complex. But my refusal to be one thing – a visual artist, a poet or even a cosmic being – is part of an ongoing Decolonial Indigenous practice.”
The article features Lehuauakea’s piece “Mana Māhū,” which combines handmade plant dyes and earth pigment paints on hand-beaten kapa bark cloth and is describe as being about “how the spirit and energy (or mana) or being māhū – a nonbinary third-gender identity in Native Hawaiian culture – is closely tied to one’s relationship with the land.”
Special recognition given to PNCA alum Mario Gallucci ‘14, whose photograph of Lehuauakea’s piece “Mana Māhū” appears in the New York Times article.