Future Ancestral Technologies

Developed in partnership with Santa Cruz-based skateboard company NHS, this exhibition will highlight the largest collection of Jim Phillips studio art, largely unseen since 1984.

Debuting at the MAH, will launch the worldwide tour of this exhibition which will travel throughout 2021.

Presented in the exhibition Sé’sh Shóto’sh Psí’sh are two entry points into the world-building work of Future Ancestral Technologies. Muscle, Bone & Sinew embody the celebration of food, shelter, and tools—paying attention to gratitude for sustenance and reverence for the technology of more than human kinships—this work is a symbol of abundance. While Watȟéča looks at utilizing the detritus our time, making due with what is left, and meant to evoke and embody the blessings and lessons of the scavenger. These two ideas make up a spectrum of possibilities to tell a full narrative of complexity in the act of survival.

“Building worlds and dismantling misconceptions through monumental installations, sculpture and performance, I place myself between the realms of contemporary art and Indigenous culture, moving amidst museums and the front lines to enact a more complex understanding of contemporary Indigeneity. ”

–Cannupa Hanska Luger

Sé’sh Shóto’sh Psí’sh is presented as part of the MAH’s Kincentricity project, a three-year initiative launched in collaboration with the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, that explores Indigenous culture. Funding is provided through a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Museums for America program. Additional support provided by The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz.

Header Image: Muscle, Bone & Sinew. Cannupa Hanska Luger. Film Still. Cinematogrpaher Lucas Mullikan, 2021.