Stories

Announcing the 2025–2026 Radical Imagination Artist Cohort

NDN Collective is honored to announce the 2025–2026 Radical Imagination Artist cohort, a powerful group of Indigenous artists whose work amplifies community voices, challenges dominant narratives, and helps move our people toward collective liberation.

The Radical Imagination Artist Grant supports Indigenous artists whose creative practices are deeply rooted in community, culture, and movement work. At NDN Collective, we understand art as more than expression; it is a strategy. It is a way of remembering, resisting, envisioning, and building futures grounded in self-determination. Through storytelling, visual art, music, performance, and media, these artists help bring people into our movements and expand what is possible.

“Artists and culture bearers envision the future through their creative expression, and they invite us to examine the present by what they write, what they paint, what they sing about, or dance for. And all of this is rooted in ancestral connection and community experience,” said Gaby Strong, NDN Collective Vice-President. “They push us forward.”   

This one-year grant supports artists as they continue their creative work while contributing to broader efforts to Defend, Develop, and Decolonize Indigenous communities, lands, and lifeways.

We are proud to introduce the following 2025–2026 Radical Imagination Artists!


Danielle SeeWalker

Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
she/her
Instagram: @seewalker_ART 
Website: www.seewalker.com

Danielle SeeWalker is a Hunkpapa Lakota citizen of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and currently resides in Denver, CO. She is a multidisciplinary artist, muralist, writer, businesswoman, former Chair Commissioner of the Denver American Indian Commission, and most importantly, a mother. In her artistic practices, Danielle works across disciplines to explore the intersections of Native American stereotypes, microaggressions, and colonialist systems, both historically and in contemporary society. Drawing on au courant color palettes, expressionistic art strategies, and her Lakota traditions, Danielle spins her work into a contemporary vision to elevate historical perspectives as told from the side not often heard. Her passion for redirecting narratives to an accurate and insightful representation of contemporary Native America is central to both her artwork and community involvement. Danielle is also a freelance writer and published her first book titled “Still Here” in 2020. She is also co-founder of “The Red Road Project,” which is a photo/film-documentary project that documents what it means to be Native American in the 21st century by capturing inspiring and positive stories of people and communities within Indian Country. In 2022, Danielle was the recipient of the Mayor’s Excellence in Arts & Culture Innovation Award and, most recently, received an Emmy Award for her work on a documentary piece with Rocky Mountain PBS called “A New Chapter.”

Rebecca Nagle

Cherokee Nation 
she/her
X/Instagram/Threads: @rebeccanagle
Website: www.rebeccanagle.com
Substack: @gohini

Rebecca Nagle is an award-winning journalist and citizen of the Cherokee Nation, located in Tahlequah, OK. Nagle’s debut book, By The Fire We Carry: the Generations-long Fight for Justice on Native Land, was an instant national bestseller, a New Yorker Book of the Year, won the J. Anthony Lukas Prize, and was a finalist for the Chautauqua Prize and numerous other awards. Nagle is also the writer and host of the podcast This Land.

Antoine Edwards (AntoineX)

Oglala/Sicangu Lakota & Umóⁿhoⁿ
he/him
Instagram/Threads: @AntoineXmusic

Antoine Edwards Jr., professionally known as AntoineX, is a hip-hop, R&B, and traditional singer-songwriter representing the Oglala, Sicangu, and Umóⁿhoⁿ tribes. He has cultivated a global fan base through a distinctive sound that fuses contemporary R&B and hip-hop with traditional influences. AntoineX is also the founder of ALLSZN, an organization dedicated to developing, supporting, and amplifying Indigenous artists and entrepreneurs.

Steph Viera

Diné and Salvadorian
they/he 
Instagram: @stephviera_

Steph Viera is a Diné and Salvadorian Two-Spirit writer, producer, photographer, and storyteller from Los Angeles, CA. In 2025, they were awarded a filmmaking fellowship through the 4th World Media Lab’s 10th cohort, during which they workshopped a documentary film in development. Their heartwork lies in shaping intentional stories of the reconnecting, multi-racial, queer, and urban Indigenous experiences. 

Linnea Kingbird-Martini

Red Lake Ojibwe Nation 
she/her
Instagram: @NativePicasso
Website: Nativepicasso.com

Linnea Kingbird-Martini is an enrolled member of Red Lake Nation. She has been creating art her whole life as a self-taught artist. Her experience includes pencil/pen, acrylic paint, watercolor, beadwork, wheat paste, and digital design. Her art reflects a commitment to honoring ancestors while nurturing future generations, offering visions of Indigenous presence that are grounded, tender, and resilient. More recently, she has been gaining experience doing painted mural projects. Linnea is now focusing on building an in-person presence via vending stands and art exhibit opportunities. Although she is always open to teaching communities and sharing her knowledge. To see more about Linnea’s work, visit her website NativePicasso.com or follow her on Instagram @NativePicasso.

Claudio “Cloud” Rodriguez

Zapoteca, O’odham, Yaqui
he/him 
Instagram: @Huarachesverdes

Claudio Rodriguez (he/him) is a migrant from Sonora and Oaxaca, Mexico, who set roots in Tucson, Arizona. His journey from gangs to gardens shapes his work as an artist, storyteller, grassroots organizer, and barrio campesino. That lived experience grounds the community‑driven frameworks “Armando Barrio” and “Barrio Campesinxs.” As a graphic artist, he blends his migrant heritage with the realities of growing up in Tucson to create visuals that honor culture and collective memory. Across all his work, he is committed to building power, connection, and possibility through land, story, and community.


The Radical Imagination Artist Grant is one way NDN Collective invests in culture as a cornerstone of movement-building. By supporting Indigenous artists, we are supporting storytellers, truth-tellers, and visionaries who help our communities see beyond colonial limits and imagine the worlds we are working toward.

We invite you to follow, support, and learn from the 2025–2026 Radical Imagination Artists as their work continues to shape conversations, movements, communities, and our collective futures.

###

NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.