Living Lineage: Contemporary Art of the Karankawa Opening Reception

Join us for an opening reception for Living Lineage: Contemporary Art of the Karankawa, an art exhibition showcasing works by Karankawa artists of today. Featured artists Sunshine, MoonSparkle, and Cari will give remarks. 

Light refreshments will be served. This event is free and open to the public. No registration is required. 

About the Exhibition

Living Lineage: Contemporary Art of the Karankawa is the latest chapter in the Karankawa Tribe of Texas’s journey to remind Texans that, despite centuries of oppression and deliberate erasure attempts, they have persevered and will continue to remain dedicated to protecting their history, language, culture, and ancestral lands. This exhibition brings together works by several contemporary Karankawa artists whose families originate in Karankawa lands and who currently reside across the country from California to New York and all over the state of Texas. Each work conveys the artist’s unique reflections on the legacies of struggle, resistance, and perseverance that the Karankawa people have embodied since time immemorial. The exhibition presents a diverse array of artistic mediums including collage, photography, sculpture, textiles, and more. Several works feature the Karankawa language as well as traditional Karankawa face tattoos and body markings. While diverse in their mediums and messages, all works featured in this exhibition invite viewers to not only acknowledge the ancestral relationship between the Karankawa and the Gulf Coast, but also celebrate the endurance and creativity of contemporary Karankawa People. 

The Rosenberg Library Museum staff expresses deep gratitude to Cari Villarreal Varner, Hawk Clan, for her collaboration and guidance in bringing this exhibition to life. The staff also thanks all featured Karankawa artists for their participation.

About the Karankawa People

The Karankawa People are the Indigenous inhabitants and stewards of what we now know as the Texas Gulf Coast. Since the mid-19th century, mainstream Texas history narratives incorrectly claimed that the Karankawa had gone extinct. In reality, a small population of Karankawa survived the deluge of violence and disease brought by European and Anglo-American colonizers and continued to pass down their history and culture to each new generation. For the past decade, Karankawa descendants have organized to revitalize the Karankawa Tribe of Texas, which is comprised of two major clans: the Hawk Clan out of the Corpus Christi-area and the Coyote Clan out of the Houston-Galveston-area. The Karankawa Tribe of Texas works diligently to reconnect with relatives, research and revitalize the Karankawa language, develop educational programs that dispel historical myths told by European colonizers about the Karankawa, protect traditional ancestral sites, and safeguard Texas’ coastal environment.