Sandra Hale Schulman
ICT
The latest: Native arts shine at Autry, Chef Sherman examines plant history, documentary humanizes an iconic Indian Country meme
MUSEUM ARTS: Jewelry, pottery and hoop dancing
The American Indian Arts Marketplace at the Autry Museum in Los Angeles is a standout event every summer. On June 6 and 7, the museum hosted Indigenous vendors, artisans, chefs, Sundance films and performances on the sprawling campus.
This year’s award winners include Jack Tom, who is Diné/Navajo, and Holly Pyke, who is Mohawk. Tom won the “Best in Show” ribbon for his exquisite necklace with turquoise coral, gold and inlay. Pyke received the prestigious “Autry Purchase Award” for her flowery basket. Numerous other awards were dispersed for outstanding work in basketry, wood carving, painting, mixed media, textiles and sculpture.
Sage Mountainflower, who is Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, exhibited her contemporary twists on Native designs at her center booth. Mountainflower was also present at SWAIA Fashion Week in Santa Fe this year. River Garza, Tongva, hosted a workshop booth with dozens of his woodcuts that kids – and many adults – came to ink the wood block cuts and make colorful paper print designs.
The Sundance Film Festival screened a selection of short films, while Native foods were served up in the courtyard.
Inside the museum, visitors took in the “Creative Continuities: Family, Pride, and Community in Native Art” exhibit featuring selected works from the Autry’s Native American collections. A fully decked out horse with beaded harness, saddle bags and neck sashes anchors the show that has cases of vintage beaded gloves, moccasins, cradle boards. Videos told stories of the creative history behind the pieces.
Down in the lower floor where the “Future Imaginaires” fashion exhibit just ended, a Native Hoop Dancing group made up of Terry Goedel, Lumbee, his son Michael and his nephew Eric Hernandez performed to a rapt audience. The group has toured the world in Cirque du Soleil and performed at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Hernandez and Goedel star in the film “Courage” which is nominated for an Emmy award.
Also in the audience was Hernandez’s wife Chef Pyet DeSpain, who was recently featured as a judge on the Indigenous special of Chopped and is also featured in “Courage”. DeSpain and Hernandez met three years ago to the day at the Autry after his performance, Hernandez gave a sweet anniversary shout out to his blushing bride.
BOOKS & BOTANY: Award winning Lakota chef talks plants
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University will welcome James Beard Award-Winning Oglala Lakota Chef Sean Sherman, “The Sioux Chef,” on June 20th for a conversation on his new book, “Native Foodways of Turtle Island with Sean Sherman.”
Sherman’s book talk is part of Drexel University’s “Botany of Nations” programming, which is a new exhibition focusing on the Lewis & Clark expedition through Indigenous voices.
“Botany of Nations,” on view through February 14, 2027, is co-curated with Enrique Salmón, PhD, an ethnobotanist and author of “IWÍGARA: The Kinship of Plants and People”, and developed with contributions from Indigenous cultural historians. “Botany of Nations” offers a culturally layered view of the plants of North America.
Collected on the famous Lewis & Clark expedition, some of the oldest plant specimens in the country are housed in the university’s Lewis and Clark Herbarium. Visitors can learn how the Native Nations that Meriwether Lewis met on the trail shared America’s plant knowledge long before Western scientists claimed these discoveries.
Highlights of the exhibit include 18th and early 19th century scientific instruments, original expedition journals, maps and herbarium sheets that illuminate the role of nature and science on the Corps of Discovery. Also featured are Native American pipes and Corps of Discovery peace medals. Attendees are invited to navigate prairie, plains, plateau and Pacific coast landscapes through a model of the trail to learn about the importance of tobacco and chokecherry. Learning comes from film, interactive media, cultural artifacts, sensory experiences and contemporary voices featured in the exhibit.
Other learning opportunities include viewing a newly produced film centering Indigenous traditional land practices and cultural food systems that provide contemporary solutions to modern biodiversity and climate challenges. There’s also an opportunity to tour a native plant garden on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway to learn how to grow heritage plants that foster biodiversity.
Drawing from his 2026 James Beard Award-nominated book, “Turtle Island,” which features 100 ancestral and modern recipes, Sherman will discuss the diverse Native foodways that have nourished Indigenous peoples physically, spiritually and culturally across North America for generations. Following Sherman’s conversation and WHYY’s “Fresh Air” co-executive producer Sam Briger, there will be a “Turtle Island” book signing and a hands-on experiential walk through “A Native Plant Garden for Botany of Nations” outside the Academy.
Attendees can sample traditional foods and prepare medicinal teas alongside Indigenous chefs Luke Black Elk, Itazipco Band of Lakota, and Joe Haber, Haudenosaunee, alongside ethnobotanist Linda Black Elk and Drexel Food Labs professor Rachel Sherman.
FILM: History of #skoden on film
The broadcast debut of Damien Eagle Bear’s “#skoden” is set for June 21, 2026. The film shot in Lethbridge, Alberta on traditional Blackfoot Territory, explores the story behind one of NDN Country’s most iconic memes and reclaims the humanity of Pernell Bad Arm, the man at its centre.
“#skoden,” the TELUS original film that world premiered at Hot Docs in 2025, will be available to watch free on demand on TELUS Optik TV channel 8 and TELUS Stream+ starting on National Indigenous Peoples History Day.
The film, “#skoden”, delves into the origins of NDN country’s iconic meme to redefine the man in the photo, Pernell Bad Arm. In the early days of social media, a notorious image circulated of an Indigenous man with raised fists, ready to strike. The photo was initially shared to both mock and reinforce stereotypes of Indigenous peoples, but one word added to the image would change it forever.
“SKODEN” – a popular Indigenous phrase originating from the shortening of “let’s go then” – is an Indigenous pop culture icon and meme that spread like wildfire across Turtle Island and was further spread by the kids in FX’s “Reservation Dogs”.
Underneath the viral fame was a Blackfoot man from the Kainai First Nation who faced challenges while living on the streets. Bad Arm died in 2015, years before the documentary’s first screening. The documentary seeks to reclaim Pernell’s humanity and offer a deeper, complex portrait of the man behind the meme.
“Pernell’s story is more than just a meme; he was a person who deserved dignity and respect,” Eagle Bear said. “For me, that was the driving force behind #skoden — to reclaim his narrative and delve into the story behind that photo and who he was.”
Eagle Bear, who is Nitsitapii (also known as Blackfoot), is an award-winning filmmaker from the Kainai First Nation. Eagle Bear has traveled the festival circuit globally winning the “Earl A. Glick Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award” at Hot Docs and Best BC Director at the DOXA Documentary Film Festival in 2025. The film features Mark Brave Rock, founder of Sage Clan, a grassroots organization that helps those who need it most.
”There have been some positive shifts in the community, but equally we could say there has been stagnation or even decline,” Eagle Bear said. “Policies haven’t been able to adequately address nor fully understand the heart of the issues at play. But in this gap where governments fail, there has been a rise in community leaders, young voices, and advocates like Mark who brings Blackfoot values and teachings into his work and hope to Lethbridge and other communities across the country.”
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://ictnews.org/arts-entertainment/indigenous-ae-autry-winners-botany-history-and-the-skoden-film/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://ictnews.org”>ICT</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/ictnews.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/cropped-Favicon-Larger-Icon-.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://ictnews.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=330050&ga4=G-YFS314KT4J” style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://ictnews.org/arts-entertainment/indigenous-ae-autry-winners-botany-history-and-the-skoden-film/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/ictnews.org/p.js”></script>
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ictnews.org ’
![CELEBRITY LAKA CHÓKWÈ – MIYELA MAMANI (NITAVUYA) [AUDIO OFFICIAL]](https://celebrity.land/en/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/1781905129_maxresdefault-120x86.jpg)
