{"id":11032,"date":"2021-11-10T15:45:04","date_gmt":"2021-11-10T15:45:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uaaglobal.com\/indigenous-artists-radically-imagine-a-new-future\/"},"modified":"2021-11-10T15:45:04","modified_gmt":"2021-11-10T15:45:04","slug":"indigenous-artists-radically-imagine-a-new-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uaaglobal.com\/indigenous-artists-radically-imagine-a-new-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Indigenous Artists Radically Imagine a New Future"},"content":{"rendered":"
This session began with a song of welcome from cultural practitioner and filmmaker Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu (Native Hawaiian, Kanaka Maoli) that opened up a space for radical imagination and relationship. Artists from the 2021 cohort of NDN Collective\u2019s Radical Imagination Grant<\/a> shared their work from the project, which invests in Indigenous artists\u2019 community-based expressions of \u201ca radically imagined, more just and equitable future.\u201d<\/p>\n Engaging with this work\u2014whether it be taking in fine art photography and film, hearing Native languages spoken and sung, or learning about specific customs and ceremonial practices within the context of decolonization\u2014is about experiencing the gift of centering Indigenous worldviews and knowledge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), a contemporary fine arts photographer, shared images that visually express her people\u2019s cultural landscape, presence and connection to the water, land, flora and fauna of the Mojave Desert of Southern California. \u201cPeople outside the reservation have little idea about contemporary life of Natives on the reservation. Everything is taught as historic and bygone. From an early age, I knew I wanted to change this narrative,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to counter the narrative that we were historic and bygone, with an emphasis on our modernity, resilience, and the beauty all around us.\u201d<\/p>\n Cara\u2019s series of #Tongvaland images are a powerful disruption of the invisibility and erasure of California First Peoples, such as the Tongva of Los Angeles. Billboards with #Tongvaland and stunning images of Native women in regalia next to oil refineries or in natural springs that remain still amidst L.A. industrial spaces, the Hollywood Sign reimagined as TONGVALAND\u2014these are examples of how Cara\u2019s art radically educates and shifts understanding about a place like Los Angeles. \u201cLos Angeles is a holy place,\u201d she asserts, pointing out that it is second to Manhattan as home to the highest population of inter-tribal Indigenous residents.<\/p>\n Marianne Nicholson (Musgamakw Dzawada\u2019enuxw First Nations) is a visual artist whose project undertakes the reclaiming of meaning and repatriating of material culture forcibly removed from her people, whose homelands are on the coast of British Columbia. That work entails rebuilding her own understanding and knowledge, and designing community-based platforms to share and return the knowledge to the tribe. This included the carving of a 14-foot traditional feast dish, which was given to the community with a feast being planned around it.<\/p>\n