The internationally acclaimed filmmaker Sky Hopinka, a MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient and Guggenheim Fellow, will give a visiting lecture at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, at the Faulkner Performing Arts Center. 

The University of Arkansas Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Art will host Hopinka as part of the school’s visiting artist lecture series, which is free and open to the public.  

Hopinka is known for his experimental films and photography that explore Indigenous homeland, language and landscape.   

His work has been featured at major festivals, including Sundance, Toronto and the New York Film Festival, and in exhibitions such as the Whitney Biennial, FRONT Triennial, Prospect.5 and the Gwangju and Göteborg Biennials. His films and photographs are held in permanent collections at renowned institutions, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Walker Art Center.  

In his lecture, Hopinka will share selections from his films and photographs, offering insight into his creative process and the cultural frameworks that shape his work. A Q&A will follow.  

Hopinka’s films are rooted in place and personal experience. He draws from his Ho-Chunk and Pechanga heritage and his upbringing in multiple Tribal communities to create work that resists expectation that Indigenous artists must explain themselves to those not part of their communities. Instead, he invites viewers to embrace the discomfort of not knowing, cultivating a space where meaning emerges through reflection and shared experience.  

His recent film Powwow People, one of 15 Indigenous films featured at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival, exemplifies this approach. Rather than documenting a powwow from the outside, Hopinka and his collaborators organized the gathering, inviting dancers, singers, vendors and community members to participate. Structured around the arc of a single day, the film follows four central figures and culminates in a 30-minute unbroken shot of a Northern Traditional dance special, immersing viewers in the textures, movement and collective presence of the powwow.  

“Sky Hopinka’s work invites us to see Indigenous life through a multi-dimensional lens that’s both personal and poetic,” said Rachel Debuque, director of the School of Art. “Bringing Hopinka to campus strengthens our commitment to amplifying Indigenous voices across our curriculum and community. These engagements spark meaningful conversations and give our students and neighbors a chance to engage with artists whose work deepens how culture, land and identity is understood in Arkansas and beyond.”

Hopinka’s visit holds particular significance for Arkansas, a state with Indigenous histories. His work honors Native ways of seeing and storytelling while challenging dominant narratives, making this event a rare opportunity for Arkansans to connect with an influential voice in contemporary art.

The School of Art welcomes all campus and community members to attend this special evening of art and conversation. For more details, visit the University of Arkansas campus calendar or follow @uarkart on Instagram and Facebook. 

The School of Art

The U of A School of Art, housed in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, offers undergraduate degrees and tuition-free graduate programs in Art Education, Art History, Graphic Design and Studio Art, which includes ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture. 

The former Department of Art transformed into a School of Art thanks a $120 million gift from the Walton Family Charitable Support Foundation in 2017. Thanks to the additional gifts and generosity from the Windgate Foundation, the School of Art established the Windgate Art and Design District and now offers state-of-the-art-facilities for all programs. 

With a mission to offer the highest quality educational, research and service programs in the visual arts, the School of Art maintains strong ties with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Momentary and other local arts organizations. This includes the new art history M.A. degree, an accredited two-year residency program in partnership with Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and specializing in the arts of the Americas. 

The school offers an active Visiting Lecture Series, with distinguished guests across all art disciplines during the regular spring and fall semesters. Past guests include Radcliffe Bailey, PNicole Cherubini, Petah Coyne and Tyler Moore. 

The School of Art is situated on the U of A main campus in the Fine Arts Center designed by Edward Durell Stone and in the Windgate Art and Design District in the heart of south Fayetteville. The district brings together art, design and education, while serving as the central hub for the student and faculty artists and designers at the U of A and beyond.

In spring 2025, the School of Art reached a new milestone - breaking ground on the final building in the Windgate Art and Design District, the Gallery and Foundations Building, which will house the school’s public galleries, innovative labs, collaborative maker spaces and the Foundations program, which is the vital first-year experience for all art education, graphic design and studio art students. 

Discover more and stay connected to the continual transformation of the School of Art at the U of A at art.uark.edu.

Sky Hopinka

Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington, and Palm Springs, California. In Portland, Oregon, he studied and taught Chinuk Wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video, photo and text work centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape, designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary and nonfiction forms of media. 

His work has played at various festivals, including Sundance, Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. His work was a part of the 2017 Whitney Biennial, the 2018 FRONT Triennial, the 2021 edition of Prospect.5 and the 14th Gwangju Biennial in South Korea and the Göteborg International Biennial in Switzerland in 2023.

He was a guest curator at the 2019 Whitney Biennial and has had solo exhibitions at the Center for Curatorial Studies–Bard College in 2020; at LUMA in Arles, France, in 2022; and in 2024 at the Frye Art Museum in Seattle, Washington, and Kunsthalle Friart in Switzerland.

His films, videos and photographs are in collections at the Museum of Modern Art; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany; The Whitney Museum; the Amon Carter Museum of Art; and the Walker Art Center, amongst others.

He was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University in 2018- 2019, a Sundance Art of Nonfiction Fellow for 2019, an Art Matters Fellow in 2019, a recipient of a 2020 Herb Alpert Award for Film/Video, a 2020 Guggenheim Fellow and was a 2021 Forge Project Fellow. He received the 2022 Infinity Award in Art from the International Center of Photography, is a 2022 MacArthur Fellow and was a winner of the 2023 Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel. He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is an assistant professor in the Department of Art, Film and Visual Studies at Harvard University.

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About the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences: The Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences is the academic heart and soul of the University of Arkansas — where discovery, creativity, and curiosity meet to create transformational educational experiences. Encompassing three schools, 16 departments, and numerous programs and research centers, Fulbright College connects the arts, humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences to advance knowledge, discovery, and serve Arkansas and the world. Discover more at fulbright.uark.edu.

About the University of Arkansas: As Arkansas' flagship institution, the U of A provides an internationally competitive education in more than 200 academic programs. Founded in 1871, the U of A contributes more than $3 billion to Arkansas’ economy  through the teaching of new knowledge and skills, entrepreneurship and job development, discovery through research and creative activity while also providing training for professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the U of A among the few U.S. colleges and universities with the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the U of A among the top public universities in the nation. See how the U of A works to build a better world at Arkansas Research and Economic Development News.