Resurgence of Indigenous Fashion with Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, Himikalas Pamela Baker, Jontay Kahm and Adrian Stimson

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Join us for a roundtable conversation with Amber-Dawn Bear Robe, Fashion Fictions contributing curator, and artists Himikalas Pamela Baker, Adrian Stimson and Jontay Kahm. The panel will address the past, present and futurity of Indigenous fashion.

On the occasion of the opening of our summer exhibition Fashion Fictions, please join us for an afternoon roundtable conversation convened by Amber-Dawn Bear Robe—contributing curator to the exhibition—and artists Himikalas Pamela Baker, Adrian Stimson and Jontay Kahm. Together, this panel addresses the past, present and futurity of Indigenous fashion(s).

Himikalas Pamela Baker is a matriarch of fashion on the unceded and unsurrendered territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations. Adrian Stimson’s work reveals how Indigenous knowledge, art practices, traditional and modern aesthetics, and fashion are inherently elevating conversations around environment, care, culture and thrivance. Jontay Kahm, an emerging fashion designer, shows a vibrant future of Indigenous fashion.

Event Details

Where: Saturday, May 27 | 3 PM
When: Vancouver Art Gallery

EVENT ADMISSION

This is a ticketed event. Your ticket to the panel talk includes admission to the Gallery. Not a Member yet? Join today and get more access to more art, more often. 

• $15 for Members
• $15 plus General Admission ($29) for Non-Members

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ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Himikalas Pamela Baker is Musgamakw Dzawada’enuxw, Tlingit, and Haida from her mother’s side, and Squamish by her father’s lineage. Professionally trained as a fashion designer, Baker focuses on designing a future that honors her ancestors. She does this by developing unique fashion collections and jewelry embedded with First Nation West Coast design elements. Copperknot Jewelry, co-founded by Baker, is a boutique featuring locally Vancouver-made jewelry. Himikalas’s goal has been to strengthen Native representation and to support Indigenous artists.

Amber-Dawn Bear Robe(Siksika Nation) is Assistant Faculty of Native Art History in the Museum Studies department at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Santa Fe, NM and Fashion Show Program Director for the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), Santa Fe, NM. Bear Robe achieved an MA in American Indian Studies and a second MA in Art History, both from the University of Arizona. Regional Emmys were awarded to Bear Robe, in 2020 and 2021, as producer for two documentary short films featuring Indigenous fashion designers. She is an acting trustee for the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) board (Colorado), and the Wheelwright Museum board (New Mexico),  and sits on the curatorial committee for Vital Spaces (New Mexico). She most recently curated  Art of Indigenous Fashion at MoCNA (2022–23) and is currently working as co-curator of an exhibition opening at The Autry in 2024. Bear Robe was the Indigenous fashion advisor for the Crystal Bridges exhibition Fashioning America: From Grit to Glamour

Jontay Kahm is Plains Cree from North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Kahm grew up on Mosquito Grizzly Bear’s Head Lean Man First Nation, where he always wanted to break into the world of fashion design. Kahm recently graduated with a BFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA), Santa Fe In May 2023. In 2016, Kahm earned a diploma in fashion design from Blanche Macdonald in Vancouver. He uses elements of Plains Cree ceremonial regalia to inform his fashion concepts. Movement with sculptural characteristics of hybrid Animalia with themes of oceanic structures are also emphasized.

Adrian Stimson is a member of the Siksika (Blackfoot) Nation in southern Alberta. Adrian has a BFA with distinction from the Alberta College of Art and Design and MFA from the University of Saskatchewan. He considers himself an interdisciplinary artist and exhibits nationally and internationally. His paintings are varied yet his use of black and white monochromatic paintings that depict bison in imagined landscapes are well known, they are melancholic, memorializing, and sometimes whimsical, they evoke ideas cultural fragility, resilience and nostalgia. The British Museum recently acquired two paintings for their North American Indigenous collection. His performance art looks at identity construction, specifically the hybridization of the Indian, the cowboy, the shaman and Two Spirit being.