For the September 2026 newsletter, we invited 2026 Forge Project Fellow Heidi K. Brandow to share a bit about herself, her practice, and the fellowship.

Tell us about yourself — who you are, where you’re from, and your work and/or practice(s).

I’m Heidi K. Brandow, a Diné (Navajo) and Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) artist, curator and educator whose practice is grounded in relationships to land, community, and place. I grew up between the Navajo Nation and Hawaiʻi, experiences that continue to shape how I understand identity, belonging, movement, and cultural continuity.

My interdisciplinary practice spans painting, video, textiles, research, and socially engaged work. Across these forms, I explore Indigenous relationships to land and memory, environmental change, nomadism, mobility, and the ways knowledge is carried across generations and geographies. Increasingly, my work also brings Indigenous communities into dialogue across regions, particularly Native North America, the Pacific, and Central Asia.

Alongside my studio practice, I work as a curator and educator, developing exhibitions, exchanges, and research projects that center Indigenous artists and ways of knowing. I’m especially interested in creating spaces where artists, cultural practitioners, scholars, and communities can learn from one another outside of conventional Western institutional frameworks. Whether through an artwork, exhibition, garden, residency, or gathering, I see my practice as a way of building relationships between people, places, histories, and possible futures.

What drew you to the Forge Project Fellowship?

What drew me to the Forge Project Fellowship was its holistic approach to supporting Indigenous artists, not only through financial resources, but through time, trust, community, and long-term relationship building. As an artist whose practice moves between studio work, research, curatorial projects, and community-based initiatives, I was especially drawn to the freedom the fellowship offers artists to decide what they need and how they want to use the opportunity. Having the time and space to pursue work without the expectation of producing a predetermined outcome feels both rare and deeply meaningful.

I was equally drawn to the community Forge has cultivated. The opportunity to join a network of Indigenous artists, thinkers, culture bearers, supporters, and fellowship alumni feels as valuable as the fellowship itself. Much of my practice is rooted in relationship-building and creating connections across communities and geographies, and I value programs that understand those relationships as something that continues well beyond a single fellowship period.

The financial support is also significant. It provides the flexibility artists need to take risks, conduct research, travel, experiment, or protect the time necessary to make work. What resonates with me most about Forge is that these forms of support, such as financial, creative, and relational, are not treated separately. Together, they create an ecosystem where Indigenous artists are trusted to define what meaningful support looks like for themselves and, in turn, continue building relationships that strengthen a much larger creative community.

What were you hoping to make possible for yourself or your practice with the fellowship?

At the time, I was hoping to create more space for myself to simply be an artist, to have the time, resources, and freedom to follow ideas without needing to immediately define where they would lead. Like many artists, I balance my creative practice with teaching, curatorial work, community commitments, and the administrative realities of sustaining a career. The fellowship offered time to protect for experimentation, reflection, and making.

I was also interested in expanding my practice beyond what I had already been doing. I wanted the freedom to travel, conduct research, and learn from other artists and communities, and to let those experiences inform the work organically. Some of the most meaningful developments in my practice have come from encounters and relationships that I could not have anticipated at the beginning of a project.

I hoped the fellowship would create room for possibility: to take risks, deepen my practice, build meaningful relationships, and follow my curiosity without the pressure of arriving at a specific outcome. That kind of trust and flexibility is incredibly valuable, and it allowed me to think more expansively about not only what I could make, but what my practice itself could become.

How did you spend your time in residence? What did your days look like, and did your plans for the residency change once you arrived?

I spent most of my days in residence writing. In my application, I mentioned that I wanted to use the time to catch up on writing, and that is exactly what I did. My routine became wonderfully simple: each day, I settled into the library on the second floor of the main house and spent hours writing, thinking, and working through projects I hadn’t previously had the time or space to fully focus on.

I loved working in the library because it was spacious, filled with beautiful natural light, and had incredible views. It was also very quiet and private, which supported my process and let me concentrate without the usual distractions and responsibilities of everyday life.

In that sense, my plans didn’t change dramatically once I arrived. What surprised me was how valuable it was to actually have the uninterrupted time I had hoped for. There was something restorative about establishing a rhythm, returning to the same space each day, and simply working. The residency gave me permission to slow down and give my writing the sustained attention it needed, and that became one of the most meaningful parts of my time at Forge.

Were there particular people, conversations, encounters, or moments — within Forge, within the Mahicannituck [Hudson] Valley community, with the land — that have stayed with you?

The moments that have stayed with me most were the conversations and relationships I developed with other artists who happened to be in the area at the same time. Marilou Schultz, for example, was in town for her solo exhibition at Bard, and I learned so much from her during our time together. It was a pleasure to have breakfast with her in the mornings before she rushed off to work on her installation. Those informal moments of conversation and exchange were incredibly meaningful.

I also felt lucky to spend time with Forge Fellow alumni Skye Tafoya and Mikayla Patton, who were in the area while Mikayla completed her MFA residency and Skye worked on a book-related project. I really appreciated getting to know Forge staff like Sarah Biscarra Dilley and spending time with Sarah and their partner, Kahelelani Mahone. And, of course, I had the opportunity to get to know fellow visiting artist and Forge Fellow Lehuauakea during their time in residence.

Taken together, what stays with me is the feeling of being surrounded by a genuinely supportive network of people. Everyone was incredibly kind, sincere, generous with their time and knowledge, and also doing remarkable work in their respective fields.

There was something special about being in a space where those relationships could develop naturally—not necessarily through formal programming, but over meals, conversations, shared time, and simply being present with one another. It reinforced for me how important community and relationship building are to a creative practice, and that sense of connection is something I continue to carry with me.

Did anything emerge from the fellowship that you didn't expect? How is the fellowship shaping/shifting your practice?

One of the biggest and somewhat unexpected takeaways from the fellowship was realizing how important it is for me to intentionally make time for research. I’ve always incorporated research into my practice, but the fellowship helped me see what becomes possible when I approach it more focused and sustained. Having that space encouraged me to follow questions more deeply, trust my curiosity, and recognize research itself as an important part of my creative process.

Looking back, I also realize how much my practice has grown and expanded over the past year or two, and Forge has played an important role in supporting that trajectory. My work has become increasingly interdisciplinary and relationship-driven, moving between artmaking, research, curatorial work, and building connections among artists and communities. I feel much more confident in the direction I’m moving and in trusting that these different aspects of my practice belong together.

Perhaps most importantly, the fellowship reinforced my desire to use the opportunities and relationships I cultivate not only to support my own practice, but to create opportunities for other Native artists and community members. Moving forward, I want to continue being intentional about how I use my time, experiences, and growing network to open doors, build relationships, and create spaces where others can thrive as well. That feels like one of the most meaningful ways to carry forward the support I received from Forge.

What are you working on now/recently, and where can people encounter your work? Are there projects, exhibitions, publications, or other things you’re particularly excited about?

I’m actually writing this from Mongolia, where I’ve been spending time continuing to build relationships with Central Asian artists and culture bearers and thinking about what future collaborations might look like. Much of my recent work has focused on creating connections across Indigenous communities and asking what becomes possible when we build relationships directly with one another, rather than always moving through Western-centered institutions and frameworks.

One project I’m particularly excited about is an arts and culture initiative I’m developing between Mongolia and the United States with artist Chinbold Lkhagvasuren. The idea is to create opportunities for Indigenous artists, cultural practitioners, curators, and other creative thinkers to convene, exchange knowledge, and learn from nomadic cultures from a global perspective. We’re interested in creating a space for solidarity, curiosity, and reciprocal learning that intentionally moves away from Western-centric systems that, frankly, feel increasingly outdated and do not always serve our communities or our long-term interests. We want to explore what we can build when Indigenous people have the space and resources to learn directly from one another and imagine new models of cultural exchange.

I’m excited to share the upcoming publication of Designed to Be Red: Native American & Indigenous Graphic Works, the first book to document Native American and Indigenous graphic design as a foundational practice. Written by Brian Johnson (Monacan Indian Nation) and edited by me, Heidi Brandow (Diné/Kānaka Maoli), the book will be published by DelMonico Books on September 22, 2026. Its release coincides with Brian’s exhibition at Poster House in New York City, opening September 25. I’m incredibly proud to have contributed to this important publication and encourage everyone to check it out and preorder a copy!

Closer to home, I’m also preparing for an October public program connected to my ongoing project, Living Chart: Diné Knowledge for a Post-Extractive Future. I’ve invited Navajo weavers, an ethnobotanist, and other Native artists and knowledge holders to share their practices and speak about relationships to plants, particularly those traditionally used for dyes. The larger project considers how existing Diné knowledge systems surrounding plants, land, material, and making might help us think differently about remediation and our relationships to landscapes impacted by extraction.

These projects may seem geographically far apart, but for me they are deeply connected. Both ask what knowledge already exists within Indigenous communities and what can happen when we create spaces for that knowledge to be shared across generations and geographies. That is where much of my practice is heading right now, and I’m incredibly excited to see where these relationships and conversations lead.

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Portraits of Heidi K. Brandow by Alekz Pacheco, 2026.