Museum of Art

Please join us on February 2 when video and sound artist, photographer, and writer Sky Hopinka will discuss his work in a lecture presented by the Bates Museum of Art. Hopinka’s four-minute video Mnemonics of Shape and Reason is featured in the museum’s current exhibition Exploding Native Inevitable, on view through March 4, 2024, and his video Sunflower Siege Engine, will be screened in a mini film festival on February 28, organized by the museum in conjunction with the exhibition. The lecture will be held in Room 104 of the Olin Arts Center at 4:30 pm. The public is welcome to the event and the exhibition free of charge.

Hopinka says of his work: 

On one hand, [my films are] for everybody. And, on another hand, they are for me, my family, my community, my tribe. I want people to watch these films because I want them to be part of a larger conversation of … what comes next? What does the next generation of indigenous experimental filmmakers look like?”

About Sky Hopinka

Hopinka layers documentary-style and abstract imagery with sound and language, creating an innovative cinematic language that represents Indigenous histories and contemporary experiences. In his films, images and forms meld together, accompanied by transcendent sounds, superimposed  text, and Hopinka’s voice reading poetry. His atmospheric vignettes incorporate personal interpretations of homeland, landscape, language, culture, and aesthetics. Learn more about the artist at  https://www.skyhopinka.com/.

Hopinka is part of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians. He was born in 1984 in Ferndale, Washington, and currently lives in New York City. He received an AA from Riverside City College, BA in Liberal Arts from Portland State University, and MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is Assistant Professor of Film and Electronic Arts at Bard College, and a 2022 MacArthur Fellow.