Duwawisioma (Victor Masayesva Jr.)

Duwawisioma (Victor Masayesva Jr.) and Pippa Garner were selected as 2025–2027 CARA Fellows for the enduring influence of their unconventional experimentation across mediums. Working across writing, photography, and video, Duwawisioma is known for blurring the boundaries between documentary and experimental film through his use of abstract and poetic overlays. Foregrounding the lived experiences, traditions, and spiritual values of Indigenous nations, particularly the Hopi, his artistic practice provides forms of visual sovereignty and challenges colonial narratives by centering Indigenous perspectives and aesthetics. He uses technologies ranging from computer animation to experimental cinematography, and, in the process, reclaims them as tools of empowerment and resistance. He also maintains seasonal farming practices and looks after ceremonial responsibilities as the caretaker of the Dak Kiva, a traditional Hopi teaching space.

About Duwawisioma (Victor Masayesva Jr.)
Raised in the traditional Hopi village of Hoatvela, Duwawisioma (b. 1951) went on to Horace Mann School and Princeton University for his Western education. He returned home in 1978 to teach arts at the local community school and became the caretaker of the Dak Kiva, a teaching space where tribal knowledge is exchanged across generations. He sustains seasonal farming practices that are inextricably linked to Hopi ritual and ceremony. With his remaining time, he concentrates on writing, film, and photography.

Portrait courtesy the artist