Come to the National Museum of the American Indian for an in-gallery talk that brings visitors together with curators and other experts for deeper consideration of specific artworks currently on view in the museum. Join Rebecca Trautmann, curator of Water’s Edge: The Art of Truman Lowe, for a conversation with interdisciplinary artist and carver, Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu Gingrich (Koyukan Dené/Iñupiaq), the museum’s 2025-2026 Native Arts Fellow. Together, they’ll offer visitors a closer look at specific artworks in the exhibition and discuss the connections between Ivalu and Lowe’s art practices.
Erin Ggaadimits Ivalu (she/her) is a Koyukon Dené and Iñupiaq carver, interdisciplinary artist and educator working and subsisting in South-Central Alaska on Denaʼina homelands. Honoring her arctic and subarctic ancestral homelands, Ivalu’s work represents what has tied her and her ancestors to the North. Ivalu received her BFA in Native Art from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, her MFA in Studio Arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is currently a Term Instructor of Art for the University of Alaska Anchorage. Awarded with the Native Arts Fellowship at the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) from August 2025 through July 2026, Ivalu will be researching and visiting with carved and adorned cultural belongings from her homelands. This work is connected with the tangible ancestral discourse that is within carved cultural belongings and the designs to make tracing and echoes of what the ancestors made. This research will take the form of photographs, sketches, tracings, writings, film, and templates through visiting the tangible cultural belongings or archives. Following the conclusion of this fellowship, Ivalu will focus on building a cabin at a fish camp to stay connected to what feeds her and her work.
Leading support provided by Bank of America. Major support provided by the Henry Luce Foundation. Generous support provided by the Terra Foundation for American Art and Ameriprise Financial. Additional support provided by John and Meryl Lavine, Greg and Cathy Tibbles, and Leslie A. Wheelock.
Image: Photo by Norwood Photography for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian