ARTIST STATEMENT
Our What Ifs Became Real Life
Amber Buckanaga and James Harvin
Knowing our families’ histories, we asked what if our grandparents had simpler lives without racism, systemic oppression, slavery, and genocides? What if our fathers weren’t absent and our what if our mothers weren’t addicts? A search for the knowledge of our families’ pasts, while healing our own traumas, has brought each of us to a place of acceptance and a reframe. We honor the girls our mothers are. The boys our fathers were, we express gratitude for the challenges our ancestors faced so that we could each be here today. They live on through us.
This exhibition consists of a collection of paintings, sketches, writings, textile works, musical pieces, and traditional beadwork.
About the Artists
Amber Buckanaga is a member of the Leech lake Band of Ojibwe and was raised on the Mille Lacs Band Reservation, she now resides in the Twin Cities. Her work includes her clothing collections being show at New York Fashion Week in 2019, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025. Amber has exhibited and shown fashion collections locally with multiple organizations and Tribal gatherings. A special facet of Amber’s work includes teaching youth and adults the arts. Sewing, beading, and painting are some of her offerings. When Amber shows her work, collaborating with other artists is a special and necessary part of her work, with the idea of “if I win we all win” these collaborations come in many forms such as working with models, designers, sewists, painters, traditional artists, musicians, and poets. Amber offers her art to the world under her business name, Buckanaga Social Club.
James Harvin is an Afro-Indigenous (Black, Nahua, Rappahannock Descendant) musician, poet, and designer who hails from Harlem, New York. He now resides in the Twin Cities and continues to perform and design clothes for the Duality Collection, a brand that he co-founded with his partner Amber Buckanaga. James has designed for New York Fashion Week 2023 and has performed at the Minnesota State Fair to name a few of his major projects. Whether it be music, poetry, or fashion, James’ goal is to offer honest art that invites the audience to sit in and walk through his own trauma and healing journey of self-acceptance. “Art allows me a vantage point to see my adversities and extract the beauty and lessons from life,” says James. His work can be found via social media @dualitycollective and his website dualitycollection.shop