Awarded the Emerging Native Arts Grant for an Architecture-Driven Practice
NEW YORK, Feb. 3, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — The Walker Youngbird Foundation, a Native-led 501(c)(3) nonprofit supporting emerging Indigenous artists, announces Chelsea Bighorn as a 2026 recipient of the Emerging Native Arts Grant. Her winning proposal centers on a new body of sculptural work that pushes her pleated canvas and bead practice into a more architectural form, drawing equally from Native garments and the cityscape she encounters on her daily train commute.
A cornerstone initiative of the Foundation, the Emerging Native Arts Grant supports early-career Native artists whose work advances contemporary Indigenous practice. Awarded twice annually, the program provides a $15,000 unrestricted grant, along with structured support focused on sustaining an independent art practice, concluding with a public presentation of new work.
Born and raised in Tempe, Arizona, and of Lakota, Dakota, and Shoshone-Paiute heritage, Chelsea Bighorn weaves fiber, form, and cultural memory into a sculptural language grounded in material rigor and lived experience. Drawing from both her Native American heritage and her Irish-American background, Bighorn reinterprets Indigenous design through a personal lens, translating ceremonial references into contemporary forms using textiles, canvas, and beadwork. Her practice emphasizes scale, pleating, and repetition as narrative tools—linking memory and place through the physical act of making.
“This grant gives me the opportunity to push myself further in the realm of pleating and explore what I can accomplish with the right support behind me,” said Bighorn. “Creating has always been my happy place, but it hasn’t always been feasible to fully realize my ideas. This moment allows me to bring those ideas together into something monumental, drawing from both Native garments and the architecture I encounter during my daily train rides through the city.”
Bighorn received her MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2024 and is a graduate of the Institute of American Indian Arts. She lives and works in Chicago and has exhibited at institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Native Art, SITE Santa Fe, Catharine Clark Gallery, and the Center for Native Futures.
“Chelsea’s work stood out for its formal clarity and ambition,” said Reid Walker, founder of the Walker Youngbird Foundation. “She’s using material and structure to think seriously about place—how it’s remembered, inhabited, and rebuilt. This project marks a real expansion of her practice, and that’s exactly the moment this grant is meant to support.”
The grant will support Bighorn as she develops a new body of work expanding her material practice into a more architectural register. Continuing to work with canvas and beadwork, she will transform pleating into dimensional form, with beads functioning as a visual language that traces structure, movement, and process. Drawing inspiration from both traditional Native garments and the built environment of Chicago, the project brings cultural memory into dialogue with contemporary urban space.
For more information on the Walker Youngbird Foundation and the Emerging Native Arts Grant, visit https://walkeryoungbird.org.
For more information on Chelsea Bighorn, visit https://chelseabighorn.com.
About the Walker Youngbird Foundation
The Walker Youngbird Foundation supports emerging Native artists through funding, visibility, and curatorial connection. In addition to unrestricted grant support, recipients receive six months of active engagement, including strategic guidance and access to a network of curators, gallerists, and arts leaders through the Foundation’s Advisory Council.
To learn more, please visit https://walkeryoungbird.org/.
Media Contact:
Sheila Smith
sheila@slsnarrative.com
203.917.8644
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SOURCE Walker Youngbird Foundation
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