Sandra Hale Schulman
ICT
The latest: Edgy images from Chemehuevi photographer, Fashion Week returns, Florida views and vistas
ART: Past and present in retrospective show
The Phoenix Museum of Art is hosting a major solo exhibition exploring the daring narrative of Chemehuevi photographer Cara Romero, presenting more than 50 works Romero created between 2013 and June 2025.
The exhibition, “Cara Romero: Panûpünüwügai (Living Light),” features new and never-before-seen photographs, site-specific installations, large-scale photographs, and illuminating views across five thematic sections.
Her images include astronauts surrounded by corn cobs, women floating in water memories, chiefs in bold colors, Native rabbit women on the moon, and the three sisters brought to tattooed techno life.
“How does it feel? Everyone keeps asking me,” Romero said in a statement. “It feels wonderful, and surreal, and humbling. I don’t even know if all of those words work together to describe a feeling that is more than what I thought or knew was possible. Is it unbelievable? Maybe, but here it is.”
“Panûpünüwügai” opened at the Phoenix Art Museum on Feb. 27 after its premiere in 2025 at the Hood Museum of Art in Hanover, New Hampshire. It will run in Phoenix through June 28, 2026.
Romero praised Hood Museum Director John Stomberg and the museum’s curator of Indigenous art, Jami Powell, for believing in the show and her body of work.
“It is not often that a man of John Stomberg’s stature hands over the keys to young Native women and gives them full agency over a solo museum exhibition — let alone puts all of their combined resources behind our vision,” Romero said. “When Jami first asked me if I wanted to do this show together in 2022, I said yes, and then I just cried. She asked, ‘Why are you crying?’ and I said that 45-year-old Native women photographers don’t get invited to do solo mid-career surveys. It still gets me choked up thinking about what an incredible opportunity this is, how it’s beyond anything I ever imagined possible.”
She said the Phoenix exhibition will bring the works home to her community as well.
“Like many of us, I am from a very rural reservation in the heart of the Mojave Desert, so it is so exciting to get to see — and be with — my community at the openings, and for them to be able to come see the work in person,” she said. “That is just a highlight of my life.”
FASHION: Change of clothes for Fashion Week
It’s back for a second year. The Southwestern Association for Indian Arts has announced the return of SWAIA Native Fashion Week for May 8–9 at the Eldorado Hotel & Spa in Santa Fe, a change from last year’s convention center location.
The 2026 program introduces a “refined, curated format designed to deepen engagement, strengthen designer visibility, and create a more intimate, storytelling-driven experience for guests” SWAIA said in a statement.
Among the Native designers being featured are Patricia Michaels, Taos Pueblo; Himikalas Pamela Baker, Squamish/Kwakiutl/Tlingit/Haida; Lauren Good Day, Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara Nation; Jamie Okuma, Luiseño/Wailaki/Okinawan/Shoshone-Bannock; and Jontay Kahm, Plains Cree. Peshawn Bread, Comanche/Kiowa/Cherokee, will return as the event’s producer in partnership with SWAIA.
Credit: Photo courtesy of SWAIA
“This year’s format allows us to focus on depth over scale,” said SWAIA Executive Director Jamie Schulze. “By bringing the program into a single venue, we are creating higher-impact moments, stronger connections between designers and audiences, and new opportunities to integrate hospitality, culinary storytelling, and fashion into one cohesive experience.”
The event includes a Native Creatives Market that is open to the public, on Friday and Saturday, May 8-9, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. The market of ready-to-wear Native fashion and accessories will be available for purchase.
The weekend winds up with “A Taste of Native Fashion Gala,” a culinary and fashion experience showcasing participating designers’ collections on Saturday night.
PHOTOGRAPHY: Ghost orchids and landscapes
Artist/designer/landscape photographer Brian Zepeda, Seminole, will be featured as part of an exhibition on the works of famed photographer Ansel Adams running March 14-Aug. 2, 2026, at the The Baker Museum in Naples, Florida.
A “Community Spotlight” portfolio review will also feature Zepeda assessing and critiquing invited local aspiring photographers’ portfolios of work on Friday, March 20.
As an Indigenous photographer, Zepeda offers a cultural gaze, introducing perspectives rooted in his Seminole identity and lived experiences in the Everglades. His work highlights alternative ways of seeing, interpreting and connecting with the land as a steward, including delicate images of flowers and vast landscapes of sea grass. He will also be exhibiting his traditional style Seminole beadwork.
The exhibit is in conjunction with “Discovering Ansel Adams,” which begins with the famed photographer’s first photographs of Yosemite National Park, which he took in 1916 as a 14-year-old tourist from San Francisco.