Forge Project announces the launch of its imprint with the publication "Native Visual Sovereignty: A Reader on Art and Performance"

(Mahicannituck River Valley, NY - November 6, 2025) –– Forge Project, a Native-led nonprofit organization on the unceded homelands of the Moh-He-Con-Nuck in Upstate New York, is pleased to announce the launch of its imprint with the publication Native Visual Sovereignty: A Reader on Art and Performance.

Conceptualized by Forge Project Executive Director and Chief Curator Candice Hopkins (Tlingit, citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation), Native Visual Sovereignty: A Reader on Art and Performance is a major new publication that positions performance and theater as origin points for the development of contemporary art by Native American, First Nations, Métis, Inuit, and Alaska Native artists. The book is co-published by Dancing Foxes Press in association with the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College; Forge Project; MacKenzie Art Gallery; and SITE SANTA FE.

Spanning 560 pages and over 180 images, Native Visual Sovereignty identifies two pivotal moments that shaped contemporary Indigenous performance: the beginning of the Self-Determination Era, sparked by the occupation of Alcatraz Island by the Indians of All Tribes in 1969, and the publication of the vanguard document Indian Theatre: An Experiment in Progress by the Institute for American Indian Arts (IAIA) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which launched the contemporary Native theater movement, that same year.

The reader highlights how Native artists—then and now—are at the vanguard of performance art practices and discourse, using humor as a strategy for cultural critique and reflection, parsing the inherent relationships between objecthood and agency, and often complicating representations of the Native body through signaling the body’s absence and presence via clothing, blanketing, and adornment. Song, dance, and music are also posited as a basis for collectivity and resistance and a means to speak to a time when Native traditional ceremony and public gatherings were illegal in both the United States and Canada.

A Collaborative Publication

Published by Dancing Foxes Press, Native Visual Sovereignty is a collaboration with Forge Project, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, MacKenzie Art Gallery, and SITE SANTA FE. The book builds upon the exhibition Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, curated by Hopkins, which premiered at the Hessel Museum of Art, CCS Bard (2023), and is touring internationally through 2026.

This project exemplifies Forge Project’s mission to center Indigenous knowledge and leadership in the arts, supporting the creation of scholarship and exhibitions that advance Native self-determination through visual and intellectual sovereignty.

About the Editor

Candice Hopkins (Tlingit, citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation) is a writer and curator. She is executive director and chief curator at Forge Project, on the ancestral homelands of the Moh-He-Con-Nuck, and fellow in Indigenous Art History and Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. Her scholarly and curatorial work explores the intersections of history, contemporary art, and Indigeneity. 

Related Exhibition and Events

The watershed exhibition Indian Theater: Native Performance, Art, and Self-Determination since 1969, curated by Candice Hopkins, will be on view at SITE SANTA FE and the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico, from June 5 to September 21, 2026. It follows earlier presentations at the Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College in Annandale-On-Hudson, New York (2023), and the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan (2025).

Upcoming programs:

• November 11, 2025: Evening with Candice Hopkins, Spiderwoman Theater, and screening by Jeffrey Gibson at Performance Space New York

• November 15, 2025: Book launch during the Indigenous Curatorial Collective convening, Regina, Saskatchewan

About Forge Project

Forge Project is a Native-led non-profit organization whose mandate is to cultivate and advance Indigenous leadership in arts and culture. Through fellowships, exhibitions, programming, publishing, and partnerships, Forge advances Indigenous self-determination and fosters new forms of storytelling and collective learning.

Press Contacts

Barbara Schroeder
Dancing Foxes Press
[email protected]
www.dfpress.org/

Niki Hunt
Communications Coordinator, Forge Project
[email protected]
www.forgeproject.com
Instagram: @ForgeProjectNY
Facebook: /ForgeProjectNY