Year of American Indian Pop Culture
The Year of American Indian Pop Culture (2025–2026) is an interdisciplinary initiative at Duke University designed to celebrate and critically engage with the dynamic presence of Native Nations and Indigenous Peoples in the United States in contemporary popular culture.
Anchored by major public events such as the IndigiPopX (IPX) comic-con and two landmark exhibitions — “Power, Presence, and Future: American Indian Pop Art in Action” at the Nasher Museum and “American Indians Go Graphic” at Perkins Library — the initiative brings together artists, scholars, and American Indian citizens to explore the intersections of creative representation, Indigenous innovation, and revolutionary futurisms. Through public programming and scholarly discussions, this yearlong focus aims to increase visibility and deepen understandings of how American Indian creators assert identity, challenge stereotypes, and shape popular media.
This initiative is part of the broader mission of the RISE-US: Research for Indigenous Studies & Engagement in the United States national and international research support program to promote ethically grounded, community-accountable research, and visibility for Indigenous Peoples in the United States.
July 2025–December 2025
American Indians Go Graphic
Comic Book Exhibition
The Jerry and Bruce Chappell Family Gallery
Perkins Library, Duke University
Free and open to the public
Curated by Dr. Courtney Lewis and Dr. Lee Francis, IV, this exhibition celebrates stories about and created by American Indians and explores historic and contemporary Native Nation-centric topics through the medium of comic books and graphic novels.
August 2025–January 2026
Power, Presence, and Future: American Indian Pop Art in Action
Art Exhibition
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Free and open to the public
The artists in this exhibition shatter these distortions by drawing on Pop Art’s saturated color, humor, irony, and interest in mass culture. Their work creates and claims spaces for Indigenous agency, authorship, and aesthetic power, challenging what Pop Art can do and what viewers are conditioned to see.
November 14–16, 2025
IndigiPopX
Indigenous Comic Con
Penn Pavilion, Duke University
This Indigenous pop culture expo showcases Native American and Indigenous creatives and communities in a way that dispels the mythologies that Natives are a people of the past.
February 6, 2026
Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band
Duke Arts Presents
Reynolds Industries Theater, Duke University
Led by the celebrated vocalist and luminary Julia Keefe (Nez Perce), this all-star ensemble of Native and Indigenous jazz musicians celebrates the genre’s deep Indigenous roots.
February 12, 2026
“Indigenomicon: American Indians, Video Games, and the Structures of Dispossession”
Jodi Byrd
Professor, Department of Race, Diaspora, and Indigeneity
University of Chicago
Free and open to the public
More information coming soon!
April 2–3, 2026
Bear Grease: The Musical
Duke Arts Presents
Reynolds Industries Theater, Duke University
Bear Grease is an unapologetically Indigenous musical and a loving clap back to the classic hit Grease—reimagined through the lens of Indigenous culture, language, song, and humor.
April 2026
Artist-in-Residence: Arigon Starr
More information coming soon!
Year of American Indian Pop Culture banner art by Kristin Gentry.