Kite: Indigenous Artist Spotlight

Nazanin Lankarani for The New York Times spotlights how contemporary art by Indigenous artists is being embraced and supported by institutions and the larger art market. 

Oglála Lakȟóta artist Kite is featured alongside Shipibo-Konibo artist Sara Flores and Mapuche artist Seba Calfuqueo. Lankarani writes, “Groundbreaking in their practices, they have challenged exclusionary categorizations while gaining international visibility through museum showings, biennials, public art commissions and institutional exhibitions around the world.”

Kite’s practice in hide, beadwork, and embroidery is mentioned alongside her scholarship and directorship of Wíhaŋyable S’a (pronounced wee-HAH-blay SAH) Center for Indigenous A.I., a research center at Bard College. 

Lankarani focuses on Kite’s performance practice, notably at Frieze New York, where she presents portions of “Wíhaŋyablapi (of St. Louis)” (2026), a large installation and live performance that Kite developed with the nonprofit Counterpublic. “The work draws on Oglala Lakota women’s traditions of beading and porcupine quill work, two practices that are used to translate dreams, visions and cosmological knowledge into material form. Working from that tradition, Kite has constructed a map of St. Louis that highlighted the places where communities dream today: homes, gardens, parks and music venues.”

Wíhaŋyablapi (of St. Louis) will be on view in full as part of the third Counterpublic Triennial 2026: Coyote Time beginning September 6.