Beyond the Image: Indigenous Art, Fashion, & Representation

Featuring Dante Biss-Grayson, Osage artist, fashion designer, U.S. Air Force veteran, and founder of Sky-Eagle Collection and the International Indigenous Fashion Council.

Who Has the Power to Tell the Story?

An image can introduce a culture to the world. It can also reduce a living culture to a trend. Beyond the Image explores what happens when Indigenous artists move from being the subjects of other people’s stories to defining those stories for themselves.

Art, Fashion, and Indigenous Representation

At the heart of this conversation is Sky-Eagle Collection, founded by Osage artist, fashion designer, and U.S. Air Force veteran Dante Biss-Grayson. Through his work in art and fashion, Dante connects the history of Indigenous creative expression to questions of authorship, ownership, cultural extraction, and tokenism.

He will reflect on the difference between cultural appreciation and appropriation, as well as the role of creative voices in bringing visibility to the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW).

Honoring Native American Veterans

In recognition of Veterans Day, the program will feature a short film about Native American veterans created with Bawadaan, along with a PBS feature.

Shaping What Comes Next

Looking to the future, Dante will share the vision behind the International Indigenous Fashion Council and the importance of Indigenous leadership in shaping opportunity, representation, and accountability across the fashion industry.

Presented during Native American Heritage Month, Beyond the Image invites audiences to consider not simply how Indigenous people are seen, but who has the power to determine what comes next.