Artists Residency on Governors Island
American Indian Community House (AICH) is a community-based organization with a mission to improve and promote the well-being of the American Indian Community and to increase the visibility of American Indian cultures in an urban setting.
In keeping with this mission, we have a home on what is now known as Governors Island, an important place in the lives of the peoples of this region prior to colonization. The Lenape referred to the island as Paggank (“Nut Island”) after its plentiful hickory, oak, and chestnut trees. Like other smaller islands around Manhattan, tribes would visit seasonally, for fishing and gathering.
Today, AICH’s space on Governors Island is used seasonally, to present exhibitions, performances, and other cultural and educational programs, as well as to host artists in residence from May to October.
During the season, visit Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from 11am-5pm to meet the artists in residence and view their works in progress.
Governors Island
15 Nolan Park
Governor’s Island
New York, NY 10004
2026 Artists in Residence
A message from Somah Haaland, Artist Residency Coordinator
Guwwadzi hopah, greetings from Paggank!
I’m Somah, AICH’s Artist Residency Coordinator for the 2026 season on Governors Island. I am from the Pueblos of Laguna and Jemez in New Mexico, and I have been living here in New York since the summer of 2019. A poet and community organizer with a background in theater and film production, I am elated by the opportunity to share my knowledge and presence with community members and visitors alike, and to spend this season on beautiful Paggank supporting and learning from our six talented artists in residence.
Governors Island is such a special place that I have already fallen in love with. Although it holds a complex history of violence, and although the surrounding air and water are still high traffic areas, the land on Paggank has a sereneness and point of view of the city that provides a unique experience of space and time. It is a rare piece of Lenapehoking where people come to slow down, to escape the sense of urgency that is viscerally present just a short ferry ride away. I am so looking forward to witnessing the creations that our artists in residence dream up while spending time here.
Please join me in congratulating our artists, and come visit us at our space in Nolan Park every Friday through Sunday, 10am-5pm, all summer season long!
I look forward to meeting you.
dawaa’eh / thank you,
Somah
Matt Cross
Kiowa
Matt Cross is a Kiowa actor, and writer originally from Oklahoma. Since moving to New York they have appeared in such productions as The Mvskoke Project (2025), My Story is Gluskabe (2024), and Ajijaak on Turtle Island (2023), and various shows as part of the Yale Indigenous Performing Arts Program (2019-2023). In addition to appearing in productions Cross has further honed their crafts by becoming a UCB alumni, a member of the Thunderbird American Indian Dancers, a Henson trained puppeteer, and has given a Master Class on acting.
Joseph Fambrini
Mushhakòt Kshàxën (Windy Sky) is a Lenape, Filipino, and Italian
Joseph Fambrini (Mushhakòt Kshàxën / Windy Sky) is a Lenape, Filipino, and Italian multidisciplinary artist and certified artist with his nation the Delaware Tribe of Indians based in Lenapehoking’s “Brooklyn, NY”. His work centers on ancestral memory, land, and survival, depicting ancestors and sacred animals marked by the nuclear fallout and ongoing violence of colonialism, events that exist simultaneously in the past, present, and imagined futures. Through painting and mixed-media processes, Fambrini creates figures that embody fear, bewilderment, and loneliness while remaining sacred and enduring. His imagery resists erasure, asserting presence on land that continues to be occupied, built over, and raced across daily. Working within the capitalist architecture of New York City, across Manahatta and places like Wall Street, a site rooted in colonial exclusion of the Lenape, Fambrini confronts the physical and psychological barriers imposed on Indigenous life. As one of the few Lenape artists living on his ancestral homelands, Fambrini’s practice is both personal and political, holding space for grief, survival, and continuity. His work insists on the recognition of land as sacred and alive, challenging viewers to reckon with the histories embedded beneath the city and their own presence upon it.
Instagram: @tahkoxi
Adina Farinango
Kichwa Otavalo
Adina Farinango is a Kichwa Otavalo multidisciplinary artist based in Lenapehoking (New York City) whose practice spans digital illustration, photography, and embroidery as acts of resistance, healing, and self-expression. Her work reflects on what it means to belong to a diasporic community—how home is not a fixed place but something carried within us through the generations. Standing on the shoulders of her mother, her community, and all her ancestors, Adina’s art conveys resistance and joy—a celebration of Kichwa Futurisms.
Instagram: @adinasdoodles
Danielle Jagelski
Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe
Danielle Jagelski is a composer, conductor, and creative producer, and the Artistic Director and Co-founder of Renegade Opera.
Described by I Care If You Listen as “a prime example of socially responsive artistry in the 21st century,” her work has been presented nationwide at venues including Roulette Intermedium, the National Gallery of Art, and Performance Space New York.
An enrolled citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin and Red Cliff Band of Ojibwe, Danielle centers collaboration with Indigenous artists and is deeply committed to kinship building and decolonial practice. She also serves as a consultant on equitable producing, working with institutions such as NYU, University of Portland, Handel and Haydn Society, and First Nations Performing Arts.
As a conductor, she is recognized for her work in contemporary repertoire by the National Opera Association with engagements including projects with International Contemporary Ensemble, Beth Morrison Projects, Harlem Opera Theatre, Voices of Ascension, and Anchorage Opera, among others.
Her recent commissions and upcoming commissions include American Composers Forum, ChamberQUEER, Voices of Ascension, More Art, and New Native Theatre. Danielle is a recipient of the 2026 Opera America Discovery Grant, New Music USA Creator Fund, First Peoples Fund Performing Arts Fellowship, More Art Engaging Artists Commission, and additional support from organizations including the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and Opera America.
Instagram: @daniellejagelskimusic
Tawnee McKinney
Choctaw and Absentee Shawnee
Tawnee McKinney is a Choctaw and Absentee Shawnee artist. She is a writer, leatherworker, and a floral design enthusiast. As a wife and mother she uses her life experiences to weave tales of life and love. Born in Southern California, she has experienced living in many places including Paris, Washington State, the Pow Wow trail, Las Vegas and now New York City. For her, the cup is always half full.
Instagram: @tawnster777 & @johnnyandtawnee
darylina powderface
Iyarhe Nakoda Nation, Blackfoot Confederacy, Siksika Nation
darylina powderface is an interdisciplinary artist and storyteller from the Iyarhe Nakoda Nation, including one of the four nations of the Blackfoot Confederacy, the Siksika Nation. Community engagement has been central to her practice, reflected in collaborations with Indigenous-led organizations including Savage Society, Full Circle: First Nations Performance, and 2 Rivers Remix Society, as well as the Arts Council of New Westminster and Leaky Heaven Performance. Over the last few years she’s performed in ensemble works with Safe Harbors NYC, Spiderwoman Theater, and is currently participating in a workshop with Spiderwoman which will be presented June 19-20 at HB Studio. Her latest experimental short how it used to be screened at ICA Boston in 2025 and 2026, the Blue Sky Documentary Film Festival in February 2026, and at the e-flux Screening Room in Brooklyn. She recently earned her MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University, culminating in a thesis exhibition at the Wallach Art Gallery. Last summer she participated in a group exhibition Fault Lines at the Blanc Gallery and presented a short stop-motion film wiley in Growth Postures at Tutu Gallery.
Instagram: @darylinapdf
2024 Artists in Residence page | 2025 Artists in Residence page.
AICH Social Media
