UNDER ALL IS THE LAND

Native Sovereignty: Past, Present, Future
Curated by Jennifer Ley

April 18–19, 2026 | 12–5 PM
Opening (by invitation): April 17
Manufacturer’s Village, Building 3, Studio 1A
East Orange, New Jersey

PRESS RELEASE

In 2026, the United States turns 250. There will be fireworks, branding campaigns, and a familiar story about origins—tidy, triumphant, and incomplete.

Under All Is the Land: Native Sovereignty, Past, Present, Future refuses that script.

Presented during Garden State Art Weekend, April 18th - 19th, the exhibition brings together leading Native artists whose work interrupts the language of ownership that underwrites the nation itself. “Land,” here, is not property. It is not a backdrop for development or a resource to be extracted. It is relation. Obligation. Memory. Life.

This is not a commemorative gesture—it is a disruption.

Installed in a repurposed industrial space in East Orange, within Lenapehoking, the exhibition operates as a counter-monument: not something to look at, but something to reckon with. These works do not illustrate history; they insist on presence. They collapse the distance between past and future, exposing “sovereignty” not as abstraction, but as an ongoing, lived condition.

At a moment when institutions rush to acknowledge Indigenous land while continuing to operate within the same extractive frameworks, Under All Is the Land asks a more difficult question: What would it actually mean to live differently on this ground?

Artists

Ahchipaptunhe (Delaware, Cherokee)
George Alexander (Muscogee-Creek)
Heidi K. Brandow (Diné, Kanaka Maoli)
Ashley & Michele Browning (Santa Clara Pueblo, Pojoaque Pueblo)
Melissa Cody (Diné)
Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock)

Demian DinéYahzi (Diné)
K’aa Folwell (Santa Clara Pueblo)
Jason Garcia (Santa Clara Pueblo)
Charine Pilar Gonzales (San Ildefonso Pueblo)
Lauren Good Day (Arikara, Hidatsa, Blackfeet, Plains Cree)
Karma Henry (Paiute)
Michael Horse (Yaqui)
Ian Kuali’i (Native Hawaiian, Apache)
Terran Last Gun (Piikani/Blackfeet)
Rebecca Haff Lowry (Delaware)
Michael Namingha (Hopi, Tewa)
Marlena Myles (Dakota)
Darby Raymond-Overstreet (Diné)
Elias Jade Not Afraid (Apsáalooke)
Quill Christie-Peters (Anishinaabe)
Cara Romero (Chemehuevi)
Eugene Tapahe (Diné)
Zoe Urness (Tlingit, Cherokee)

About the Curator

Jennifer Ley is a curator and producer working at the intersection of contemporary Native art and public engagement. Her recent projects challenge institutional complacency around Indigenous visibility, including a 2022 installation addressing the crisis of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and Land Back - A Tiny Gallery Takeover in Lenapehoking (2024), a guerrilla-style exhibition staged on suburban lawns and pocket parks in Lenapehoking during Native American Heritage Month.

She is co-founder of the Friends of Native American Art at MAM and serves on the Arts Committee at the Montclair Art Museum.

Press Contact

Jennifer Ley
[Email - jltey@me.com
[Phone - 917 439-4380 (text first, please)

Nearby Communities

State Edition

National Edition

Montclair|Local Event

Bob Lanza Blues Band

Event Details

More Upcoming Events

Office Furniture Warehouse Liquidation Sale! Soft Seating Too!

APR

18

9:30 AM

Grand Avenue, Grand Ave, North Brunswick Township, NJ

CWC of Montclair Spring Used Book, Movie & Music Sale Continues!

APR

18

9:30 AM

26 Park St, Montclair, NJ

Free "Signs of Spring" Native Plant Walk

APR

18

10:00 AM

Montclair, NJ

Community Garden Open House

APR

18

10:00 AM

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Oratory, 94 Pine St, Montclair, NJ

Inaugural Clawfee ☕️🦞 and bAIgels 🥯 ✨

APR

18

10:30 AM

Eagle Rock Cafe, 202 Bellevue Ave, Montclair, NJ

Under All is the Land

APR

18

12:00 PM

Bloomfield, NJ

New Kids On The Block - Yoga led by the new Teacher Training Graduates

APR

18

1:00 PM

Yoga Mechanics Montclair, 107 Forest St, Montclair, NJ