Your Relatives in NYC
Korina Emmerich (Puyallup descent) ​
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Artist and designer Korina Emmerich founded the slow fashion brand EMME Studio in 2015. Her colorful work celebrates her paternal Indigenous heritage from The Puyallup tribe while aligning art and design with education. With a strong focus on social and climate justice, Emmerich's artwork strives to expose and dismantle systems of oppression in the fashion industry and challenge colonial ways of thinking.
Emmerich has worked as a board member, special advisor and educator with The Slow Factory Foundation, a board member of The Fibers Fund and she works as the Materials and Exhibitions Steward with Catalyst Dance.
She is the co-founder of Relative Arts, a brick-and-mortar community space, open studio, and shop that showcases contemporary Indigenous fashion and design in NYC’s East Village. Providing a peer-run space that fosters the advancement of Indigenous futurism through collaboration, celebration, and education.
In 2025 she co-founded the inaugural Indigenous New York Fashion Week, launching runways for over 30 Indigenous designers, over 60 Indigenous models and produced programming of Indigenous excellence in music and art.
Her artwork and designs have been featured in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, MoMA PS1, The Denver Art Museum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Vogue, Elle, Instyle, The New York Times, New York Magazine, and more notable publications. She has presented her collections in Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week, Indigenous Fashion and Arts Toronto, Santa Fe Indian Market's Couture Runway Show, NYFW and Indigenous New York Fashion Week.
Liana Shewey (Mvskoke)
is Co-founder and Director of Programming at Relative Arts, where she curates exhibitions, public engagement, and collaborative projects that center Indigenous creatives. Shewey’s interdisciplinary practice explores Indigenous futurism, community storytelling, and family archives. Her work spans event production, installation, and public education in pursuit of building solidarity, reclaiming visual sovereignty, preserving ancestral memory, and celebrating Indigenous joy.
With a background in live music production, she has contributed her expertise to curating events in cities across the country. Shewey has presented at institutions such as The New York Historical, The Children’s Museum of Manhattan, Hudson River Museum, Brown University, William Paterson University, Rhode Island School of Design, Cornell University, Columbia University, and The MoMA.
