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Please join the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) Artist-in-Residence (A-i-R) artists Leah Kolakowski (Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Tribe), Ashley Cordes (Kō-Kwel Citizen), and Evan Benally Atwood (Diné) on Wednesday, April 1, 2026, for lunch and an artist talk to learn more about their practices and current projects.Dinner is served from 5–7 pm. Located in the CLE Commons in the Center for Lifelong Education (CLE), this event is free and open to the public.
Leah Kolakowski is an enrolled member of the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Tribe, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her family of four. With a focus on darkroom photography, alternative processes, and in-camera experimental techniques, Leah has refined her photographic skills during her nomadic travels throughout Indian Country. Leah’s photography was showcased at Native American art markets, including Santa Fe Indian Market (Santa Fe, NM) and the Heard Museum (Phoenix, AZ). In 2018, the Native Arts & Culture Foundation awarded Leah a year-long apprenticeship with the prestigious Chemehuevi photographer, Cara Romero. Her passion for protecting the natural resources of Turtle Island led her to work with the Indigenous Environmental Network. She undertakes photo documentary projects with the aim of raising awareness about climate change and its impact on Indigenous communities. Today, Leah Rose continues to create photographs that reconnect her with her own Anishinaabe heritage, and also pays homage to the other Tribes and their lands along her life’s journey. It is her visual storytelling preserved.
Dr. Ashley Cordes is a Kō-Kwel Citizen, a visual mixed media artist, researcher, and Associate Professor of Indigenous Media at the University of Oregon. She blends traditional media—oil and mineral paint on wood and canvas, ink drawings, and beadwork—with digital. She is motivated by land and media issues affecting Indigenous Nations, working to shift stories from Indigenous communities ‘surviving’ in the Digital Age to Indigenous innovation/creation amidst rapid digitization and ecological change. This motivation is rooted in her lived experience, previous service to the Culture and Education Committee, and current service on the CIT Climate Resilience Task Force. Cordes received her Ph.D. in Media Studies with a declared area in Native American Studies in 2019 at the University of Oregon, an M.A. in Communication in 2012 from Hawaii Pacific University, and a B.A. in 2010 in Communication and Fine Arts from Loyola Marymount University. She has held leadership roles, including co-investigator of the Abundance Intelligence Collective, where she explores Indigenous AI alongside renowned artists. Her art is necessarily political and sensory, amplifying what it means to be a Kō-Kwel feminist with deep ties to Oregon, the cosmos, and cyberspace. Themes in her art include Indigenous AI addressed in her piece, Neural Networth (4ft x 2ft. Beads, dentalium, wampum [quahog], olivella, abalone, pine nuts, wire, metal, and embroidery floss on painted wood panel); data sovereignty in her piece, Data Trees (4ft x 2ft) featured in the Coos Art Museum. Mineral paint and abalone on painted wood panel, and salmon restoration in the multimedia piece, Storying the Coquille River (cartography, digitized ink drawings, and computational fluid dynamics). She is the author of the book, Indigenous Currencies: Leaving Some for the Rest in the Digital Age, recently published by MIT Press, and more of her publications and art can be found by visiting https://ashleycordes.github.io/
Evan Benally Atwood (Diné) is a visual artist from New Mexico, based in Portland, Oregon, who focuses on light, color, and sound. In addition to filmmaking, photography, and music, they are an environmental advocate for diversity and inclusivity outdoors. He aims to uplift their community of Indigiqueers, as well as those who have also been misrepresented, misunderstood, or marginalized. Growing up writing, drawing, and playing music, the world of creation was always a part of his nature. She hopes to balance the gender variance, expression, and empowerment within each project they do. Since 2018, they have been freelancing in creative direction, photography, and filmmaking as a small creative studio. Above all else, he hopes to create spaces where we can freely experiment, play, collaborate, and achieve our collective dreams.
For more information about the IAIA A-i-R program, please contact Maia Filippi, A-i-R Program Manager, at [email protected] or call (505) 424-2369.
If you are an individual with a disability and in need of any auxiliary aid or service to attend events, please contact IAIA’s ADA Office at least seven calendar days before the event or as soon as possible at [email protected] or (505) 424-5707.
https://iaia.edu/event/iaia-a-i-r-kolakowski-cordes-atwood-welcome-dinner-artist-talk/
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Event Venue & Nearby Stays
83 Avan Nu Po Road, Santa Fe, NM, United States, New Mexico 87508
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