Mercedes Dorame

Exhibitions (Selected)

(Upcoming) 2024 Indigenous Futurisms, Los Angeles, CA
(Upcoming) 2023 UNSETTLE/Converge, Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, IN
2023 In Our Hands: Native Photography, 1890 to Now, Minneapolis Institute of Art, MN
2023 Field Notes, Penumbra, New York, NY
2023 Looking Back, Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA (solo)
2023 Kinship, SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA
2022 Indigenous Contemporary Photography, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Forth Worth, TX
2022 Here After, Bridge Projects LA, Los Angeles, CA
2022 Family Album: Contemporary Works from LACMA, Charles White Elementary School Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2022-23 Borderlands, The Huntington Library and Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2022 I Hear America Singing: Contemporary Photography from America, US Embassy Jordan, Pizzuti Collection of the Columbus Museum, OH
2022 Biddy’s Garden, Transformative Arts, Los Angeles, CA
2021 The Map and the Territory, Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2021 Portal for Tovaangar, LACMAxSnap, LACMA, Los Angeles, CA
2021 Photo Flux: Unshuttered Los Angeles, the Getty Center, Los Angeles, CA
2021 All Words Have Roots Here, Art Space Gallery, Fresno, CA
2021 The Shape of Life, Wonzimer Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
2020 Landscape: Awe to Activism, Museum of Sonoma County, Sonoma, CA
2019 What is Feminist Art, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
2019 When I Remember I See Red, Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA, IAIA, Santa Fe, NM, The Autry, LA, CA
2019 The Autograph Book of L.A.: Improvements on the Page of the City, LA Library, Los Angeles, CA
2019 Tovaangar, Interactive Installation, Autry Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2019 Unravelling Collective Forms, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Los Angeles, CA
2019 The Land Upon Which you Stand, A Noise Within, Pasadena CA (Solo Show)
2019 Erasure: Native American Genocide: A Legacy, ReflectSpace, Glendale, CA
2019 Contemporary Traces on Ancient Land, Triton Museum, San Jose, CA
2019 The Body is the Map: Approaches to Land in the Americas After 1960, Allen Memorial Art Museum, OH
2019 Out of Tradition Sacred and Profane, deSaisset, San Jose CA
2019 Matriarchs, El Segundo Museum of Art, El Segundo, CA
2019 La Reina de Los Angeles, Descanso Gardens, Los Angeles, CA
2018 Plain Sight, Residency Gallery, Inglewood CA
2018 Made in LA, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2018 Westward, SFAC San Francisco City Hall, San Francisco, CA
2018 Home, PhotoAlliance.org, San Francisco, CA
2018 People of the Earth: Life and Culture of the Tongva, Santa Monica History Museum, Santa Monica, CA 2017
2017 Spotlights, Feria Barco, Bogota, Colombia
2017 Earth Body, Oobleck, San Francisco, CA
2016 When I Remember I See Red - California Native American Contemporary Art, Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2015 Interwoven Indigenous Contemporary, Thatcher Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2015 Altar Apparitions, Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca, NY (two person show)
2014 Locating Self, Block Gallery, Oakland CA
2014 Attunement, Armory Center for the Arts, Pasadena, CA
2013 New Works #16 Exhibition, Enfoco: Longwood Gallery, Bronx, NY
2012 In the Beginning was Fox and Cinnamon, Galeri­a de la Raza, San Francisco, CA (solo show)
2012 re:Told, Root Division Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012 Sinews, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum, Berkeley, CA (solo show)
2011 Sustaining the Circle of Knowledge, California Indian Conference, Chico, CA
2011 Origin Stories, Smokey's Tangle, Oakland, CA (solo show)
2011 Human Artifact,Vermont Photo Space, Essex Junction,VT
2010 Vernissage, Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, CA
2010 Lopped off:Women Drawing Penises from Memory, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Nice Try Sweetheart: A Shit Show, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2010 Last of the Mojitos, Queens Nails Projects, San Francisco, CA
2009 Born Into This, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 It's Still Life, Rayko Photo Center, San Francisco, CA 2009 Human Studies, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 Gathering, Indigenous Arts Coalition, San Francisco, CA
2009 First First Show, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 Dig, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2009 Artist Showcase, DUUP, Havana, Cuba
2009 Photo+Book, 23 Sandy Gallery, Portland, OR
2008 Reburial, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA (solo show)
2008 Emerging (I) 3,Traveling Exhibition, Gallery at the Creative Center for Photography, Los Angeles, CA
2008 Once Occupied - Alcatraz, Still Lights Gallery, San Francisco, CA (solo show)
2008 Post, Swell Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Collections / Awards

My work is a part of the permanent collections of: 

SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA,
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
De Saisset Museum, Santa Clara, CA
Triton Museum, San Jose, CA
Tartine California Artist Collection, Los Angeles, CA 
Allen Memorial Art Museum
Montblanc Art Commission
Phoebe A Hearst Museum, Berkeley, CA

Awards (Selected):
2020 Creative Capital Award
2018 Artist Commission Program for the Montblanc Art Collection
2018 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant
2017 James Phelan Award for California born visual artist
2012 En Foco’s New Works Photography Fellowship Awards #16
2012 Nominee, John Gutmann Photography Fellowship
2012 Nominee, Autry Museum Theo Westenberger Award
2011 Gallería de la Raza GINNA Grant
2011 Harpo Foundation Fellowship
2010 John Collier Award, San Francisco Art Institute
2010 Paul Sack Award
2009 Best in Show, 23 Sandy Gallery, Portland Oregon
2009 MFA Full Fellowship, San Francisco Art Institute

Lectures / Panels

2021 The Careful Image Podcast, Artist lecture, Pomona College
2020 Race, Activism and Photography, Center for Photography at Woodstock
2020 Artist Lecture, Scripps College
2020 UCLA AISC Artist lecture 
2020 Artist Lecture, Santa Fe Art Institute 
2020 Museum of Contemporary Native Art, residency, workshop and artist lecture
2019 UCLA ECCLIPS conference, Los Angeles, CA
2019 Brokering the Sacred, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 
2019 In Conversation: Westward Artist panel, San Francisco Arts Commission, San Francisco, CA 
2019 Artist Lecture, East Los Angeles College, Los Angeles CA
2019 Artist Lecture, CalArts, Valencia, CA 
2018 Artist in Residence, Santa Fe Art Institute  
2018 The Daily Dose: On Water, with Debra Scacco, Carolina Caycedo, The Underground Museum,  Los Angeles, CA
2018 You Are on Tongva Land, with Wendy Teeter and Angela R. Riley, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA
2018 Indigenous Art Recentering the World, with Jolene Rickard, Paul Chaat Smith, Wanda Nanibush, NAISA Conference Panel
2015 Artist Lecture, Handwerker Gallery, Ithaca, NY
2012 Artist Lecture, Phoebe A. Hearst Museum, Berkeley, CA
2012 PhotoAlliance Lecture Series, San Francisco, CA
2011 California Indian Art: Beauty and Inspiration, Panelist, Chico, CA
2011, 2010 Guest Lecturer for Post Photo: Hybrid Practices, San Francisco Art Institute