Korina Emmerich

Artist | Designer | Creative Director | Cultural Organizer

Korina Emmerich is a New York–based Indigenous artist, designer, and cultural organizer of Puyallup descent whose multidisciplinary practice explores the intersections of fashion, art, environmental justice, and Indigenous futurism. Through her work, she challenges conventional systems of production and consumption while creating space for Indigenous storytelling, creative sovereignty, and community-centered design.

In 2015, Emmerich founded EMME Studio, an independent fashion label recognized for its bold use of color, textiles, and politically engaged design. Her work draws on Indigenous knowledge systems, sustainable material practices, and a commitment to challenging the environmental and cultural impacts of the fashion industry. Her evolving artistic practice extends beyond clothing into sculpture, textile experimentation, installation, performance, and costume design for dance and theatrical productions.

Emmerich is the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Relative Arts NYC, an Indigenous-owned community arts space, gallery, and retail platform in Manhattan's East Village, which she founded alongside Liana Shewey (Mvskoke). Together, they also established Indigenous New York Fashion Week (INYFW), a groundbreaking platform celebrating Indigenous designers, models, artists, and cultural leaders while building lasting opportunities within the global fashion industry. She also works with Catalyst Dance as a Materials and Exhibitions Steward, expanding her practice through interdisciplinary collaborations that connect movement, material, performance, and visual art.

Her artwork and designs have been featured at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), MoMA PS1, the Denver Art Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, La Biennale d'art Contemporain Autochtone, the McCord Stewart Museum, and the Textile Museum of Canada. Her fashion collections have been presented at New York Fashion Week, Indigenous New York Fashion Week, Vancouver Indigenous Fashion Week, Indigenous Fashion Arts Toronto, and Santa Fe Indian Market's Couture Runway. Her work has also been featured in Vogue, Elle, InStyle, The New York Times, and New York Magazine, among other publications.

A recipient of the 2026 Pratt Institute Fashion Visionary Award and an Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grant, Emmerich continues to expand her practice through Material Lineages, an experimental body of work transforming remnants of past collections into new textiles, sculptural garments, and installations. The project reflects her ongoing interest in material memory, regeneration, and the possibilities of creating outside the demands of traditional fashion production.

Across her work as an artist, designer, educator, and community leader, Emmerich is committed to reimagining the relationship between culture, creativity, and the environment—building new systems that prioritize Indigenous futures, collective care, and creative independence.