Sky Hopinka at the Institute of Contemporary Art

In connection with the new exhibition An Indigenous Present at the ICA in Boston, filmmaker and visual artist Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) will curate a selection of short films by Native North American contemporary artists relating to the themes of An Indigenous Present, including abstraction, transculturalism, and Indigenous creative practice.

“These are fleeting works, grounded in the land and in the ways these artists move through it. Through footsteps and memory, through the sounds of voices both present and past, through family and friendship, their gestures trace a continuity between what has been and what is yet to come. The impressions they leave recall the depressions of paths once walked in another life, now retraced toward another future. Each work is a site of remembrance and becoming—one that acknowledges how the act of moving through a place is also an act of shaping it. Together, these films carve their own marks on the landscape, blurring the boundaries of when and where they belong, and revealing the porous line between presence and absence, between what endures and what drifts away.”

—Sky Hopinka

Intaglios of Breath and Light: An Indigenous Present Short Film Program
Runtime: 48 minutes.

Screening dates:
Mon, Oct 13, 12–4 PM
Thu, Dec 18, 5–9 PM
Thu, Feb 5, 2026, 5–9 PM
Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston
25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston

Additionally, Sky Hopinka will be in conversation with artist Caroline Monnet and exhibition co-curator Jenelle Porter, for a conversation exploring land, language, and the advantages of using abstraction as a tool within their work.

The Artist’s Voice: Caroline Monnet and Sky Hopinka with Jenelle Porter
Oct. 23, 7pm
Institute of Contemporary Art / Boston
25 Harbor Shore Drive, Boston
EXHIBITION: An Indigenous Present

Oct 9, 2025 – Mar 8, 2026

An Indigenous Present is a thematic exhibition spanning 100 years of contemporary Indigenous art. The exhibition includes new commissions and significant works by 15 artists who use strategies of abstraction to represent personal and collective narratives, describe specific and imagined places, and build upon cultural and aesthetic traditions. Co-organized by artist Jeffrey Gibson and independent curator Jenelle Porter, the exhibition offers an expansive consideration of Indigenous art practices that highlights a continuum of elders and emerging makers, and premieres newly commissioned site-specific works by Raven Chacon, Caroline Monnet, and Anna Tsouhlarakis.

An Indigenous Present emerges from Gibson and Porter’s 2023 landmark publication of the same name, which, through a collaborative process, brought together work by Native North American artists exploring diverse approaches to concept, form, and medium. Their engagement with artists during the making of the book inspired this exhibition—one that demonstrates the endless variability of abstraction and its capacity to hold multiple forms and histories.

Beyond the works in the galleries, the ICA highlights Native and Indigenous makers in a series of public programs and performances including an installation by artist, author, and poet Robert Peters in the ICA Bank of America Art Lab; performances of Raven Chacon’s scores and soundworks; and a film series curated by artist Sky Hopinka in the ICA Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater.

An Indigenous Present debuts at the ICA, before traveling to the Frist Art Museum in Nashville (June 26—September 27, 2026) and the Frye Art Museum in Seattle (November 7, 2026—February 14, 2027).