Obscura Gallery is thrilled to host an exhibition and book signing celebrating In Light and Shadow: A Photographic History from Indigenous America, co-authored by Iñupiaq photographer Brian Adams and photographer/author Sarah Stacke. The exhibition is on view August 14–September 26, 2026. On Saturday, August 15, the book signing begins at 3pm and the artists’ reception will follow from 4–6pm at Obscura Gallery with many of the artists present.

The exhibition, curated by Obscura Gallery, Brian Adams, and Sarah Stacke, presents work by 20 contemporary Indigenous American photographers featured in the book who explore themes of sovereignty, identity, land, and community. Historical photographs are displayed alongside the contemporary work to reveal visual lineages spanning generations.

The book presents over 250 photographs by 80 individuals and collectives, from fine artists to family chroniclers to yearbook staff to political groups, alongside text exploring the relationships between the images and their makers, bringing to light a canon of Indigenous American photography that has been shaping visual culture since the dawn of the medium.

The photographers in the book span many generations as well as multiple Indigenous societies and nations. They include Jennie Fields Ross Cobb, the earliest known Indigenous American woman photographer, and Martín Chambi, a celebrated Quechua photographer working in early 20th-century Perú, both of whose work is on view in this exhibition, and Kapuleiikealoonalani Flores, a Native Hawaiian born in 2000.

“In Light and Shadow is an essential book that reshapes, transforms, and reframes the biased narrative of our existence in the Americas . . . a collection of our own photographers embodying the humor, spirit, pain, beauty, and love of our own people.”
—Sterlin Harjo, filmmaker and 2024 MacArthur Fellow

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Brian Adams (Iñupiaq) is an editorial and commercial photographer based in Anchorage, Alaska, specializing in environmental portraiture. His work has been featured in both national and international publications, and his work documenting Alaska Native villages has been showcased in galleries across the United States and Europe. His most recent book, I Am Inuit, was published in December 2017.

Sarah Stacke is a photographer, author, and archival researcher based in Brooklyn, New York. She shares stories about relationships to the land and its histories to excavate under-considered pasts and better understand the present. Her work appears in Harper’s Magazine, The Nation, NPR, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and National Geographic. Sarah is a faculty member at the International Center of Photography (ICP), holds an MA from Duke University, and is pursuing an MFA at Cornell University. In Light and Shadow is her fourth book.

DOWNLOAD THE FULL PRESS RELEASE HERE.

VIEW ALL THE WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION HERE.