Relative Arts is a community space, art studio and shop for Indigenous art and design in Manhattan’s East Village. Founded by Liana Shewey, a Mvskoke (Creek) educator, activist and cultural worker, and Korina Emmerich, a Puyallup clothing designer, artist and activist, Relative Arts holds a curated selection of Indigenous jewelry, clothing, prints and books. Shewey and Emmerich are committed to using Relative Arts, which currently features over 50 Indigenous artists, to support and uplift New York City’s diverse Indigenous community. That means everything from hosting informal community gatherings and fundraisers for Palestinian families to donating proceeds from certain T-shirt sales to Indigenous causes.
Relative Arts
Relative Arts
Shewey and Emmerich originally met at an Indigenous women and femmes meeting organized by the American Indian Community House and quickly grew close. Eventually, the idea for a community art space came together. “We just started meeting once a week, getting coffee and being like, if we could dream of something, what would it be?” Emmerich says. “And it just kind of grew into this whole idea.”
We spoke with the two founders about their journey to create Relative Arts, what they hope to accomplish with the space and their perspectives on the Indigenous community in New York City.
Liana Shewey
I would love to hear about how the idea for the shop came together and what your original vision was.
Liana Shewey: It just became clear to Korina and I that in order for us to be able to do what we were working toward, a physical space was going to be real asset. All these folks who we carry in our shop were already doing this amazing work. Having a platform in a place like New York City to showcase their work was important to us, so that we could be lifting our community up.
Korina Emmerich: I remember sitting there and being like, “Yeah, we can do this. We can totally do this.” So, we started, I think, with about 20 artists. We are now at over 50, and it’s still not even exactly where we want it to be. It’s constant growth.
Korina Emmerich
How have you seen Indigenous people use the space as it has grown and evolved?
LS: It’s been a wonderful way to grow our community and meet more of the urban Indigenous community who are here in Lenapehoking [the original Lenape name for their homeland, which included modern-day New York City]. We’ve even seen some designs and creations born out of this space and community connections made, which is something that I take a lot of pride in.
KE: It’s a literal dream come true. We want to do much more than just the shop. The shop is the reason to have people come and hang out, but we do so much more with community events. We’ve got kids here beading and weaving all the time.
New York City has a huge, diverse Indigenous population, but we often get overlooked. Can you talk about how you see the Indigenous community in New York City and the role that you hope Relative Arts can play in it?
LS: Being in New York City has definitely expanded my idea of Indigeneity and broken down any borders that were placed in my mind by colonization. Indigenous people are experiencing oppression across the globe, and it’s important for us to break down those boundaries and barriers to come together.
It gives me a lot of hope that Native people are finding and connecting with one another, building this community and trying to break down the expectation that we’re going to be in competition with one another. I don’t know that this could have existed any other time than now. Places like the American Indian Community House, which has been around since 1969, is such an important space. We wouldn’t be here without that. We’re part of that legacy.
It’s just beautiful to see how big and powerful and healthy and imaginative the diaspora is. I’ve never met so many Indigenous people from so many places who all have this common thread, and it brings us here to this space. It’s just amazing.
KE: It’s that whole concept of if you don’t see something, then maybe it’s your responsibility to create it. Both of us had that experience of coming to New York City and feeling a little overwhelmed and just trying to find your community. And now we’ve created a space where it’s accessible for people to do that. It’s just so cool that people are moving here because there is a community, instead of moving here and then trying to find community.
What has the response been like from non-Indigenous people in the City?
KE: The space is really for us, for Indigenous people, but we do have a lot of non-Native people that come in. The neighborhood’s been super supportive of us. And that feels really good to be welcomed into this space because even if it’s Native land, it’s still New York City, and a traditional Puerto Rican part of the neighborhood here on 10th Street.
LS: This is a space where people can come to shop, and they know what they are supporting, what community they’re supporting, what individual they’re supporting. I think people are hungry for that these days. We’re fully a community space, and our community comes first, but we are happy to work with any allies.
Artist in residence Nishina Loft at Relative Arts
One of your goals is to promote Indigenous Futurism. Can you talk about what that means to you and how Relative Arts is pushing for a more expansive understanding of Indigenous art?
KE: I don’t want to be a Native fashion designer. I want to be a fashion designer who’s Native. And I think that that is still really something that’s hard to break out of, because we’re continually being marginalized, even in spaces that we are now invited into. So that’s something that I definitely want to combat with our work here.
LS: When people think of Native people, we’re always represented in this historical context. But we are out here creating right now. We want to just break out of the expectation of what Native art is, because Native art is anything that a Native makes.
Sage Ahebah Addington
What’s next for Relative Arts?
LS: It is my dream for Relative Arts to be a seed that sprouts into all of this amazing innovation of Native people coding, building buildings, making new foods and getting land back. We’ve also envisioned what it would look like for Relative Arts to open new locations that are bespoke to the communities that they’re in and run by those communities.
KE: Every space would be completely different, based on the artists that are over there, on whoever’s running the shop. I never want to get into a formulaic kind of thing. I could see that being really cool and just creating a lot more opportunity for urban Indigenous folks.
Another dream of mine is to open an art gallery that we can curate. It’d also be amazing to partner with someone in our own space, where we could host people for extended amounts of time. I would love to see us be able to develop an artist’s craft and creativity so they have the experience of being supported.
Check out Relative Arts at their East Village location (367 E. 10th St.), and follow them at @relativeartsnyc for information on upcoming events.
Joseph Lee is an Aquinnah Wampanoag writer based in New York City. His book on Indigenous identity, Nothing More of This Land, is out this July.
