INDIGENOUS A&E: LAND artist, storytellers and Native films
Sandra Hale Schulman
Special to ICT
The latest: A noted Alaskan artist takes the spotlight with a new exhibition, storytellers take the stage, and the Red Nation Film Festival is set for November.
ART: Nicholas Galanin launches new show
Acclaimed Indigenous artist Nicholas Galanin has been on a cross-country tear lately — giving talks, opening a new show, and accepting a 2023 Joan Mitchell Fellowship of $60,000.
The whirlwind tour comes after his string of installations that included “Never Forget” in Palm Springs, California, for Desert X, and “In Every Language There is Land/ En Cada Lengua hay una Tierra,” in Brooklyn.
Galanin, Tlingit and Unangax̂, was the keynote speaker with architecture professor Ronald Rael at The Convening in Cincinnati on Oct. 20-21, a special series of public talks and performances that featured artists, critics, and curators in a partnership between FotoFocus and Creative Time.
Artist Nicholas Galanin, Tlingit and Unangax̂, at right, was the keynote speaker with architecture professor Ronald Rael at The Convening in Cincinnati on Oct. 20-21, 2023, a special series of public talks and performances that featured artists, critics, and curators in a partnership between FotoFocus and Creative Time. Rael is chair of the department of art practices at the University of California Berkeley. (Photo by Sandra Hale Schulman for ICT)
In his talk, he showed images of his land-based thematic artwork and spoke about how his family life in Sitka, Alaska, where he hunts seals, fishes salmon, and hand-carves totems and canoes, keeps him grounded in more ways than one. Rael is chair of the department of art practices at the University of California Berkeley.
His latest show, “Interference Patterns,” at Site Santa Fe, is a solo exhibition rooted in his relationship to land, Indigenous visual language and thought. Working in materials that range from deer hide to neon, Galanin merges conceptual and material practices in his creative approach. The exhibition opened Oct. 6 and runs through Feb. 5, 2024.
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With sculptures, installations, and videos informing Indigenous knowledge and the ongoing effects of colonization and occupation, the exhibition includes a newly commissioned interactive installation, “Neon American Anthem (red)” that invites audiences to participate in an aural and breathing exercise related to violence and oppression inside and outside U.S. borders.
Another work, “UnconvertedConverted,” shows a deerskin affixed to a wall next to a pixelated version, forcing a comparison of the natural versus digital worlds.
“My process of creation is a constant pursuit of freedom and vision for the present and future,” Galanin said in a statement. “I use my work to explore adaptation, resilience, survival, dream memory, cultural resurgence, and connection and disconnection to the land.”
THEATER: Indigenous storytellers in the WORLD spotlight
Native voices feature prominently in Season 7 of “Stories from the Stage,” the WORLD storytelling series that finds ordinary Americans on stage recounting their extraordinary tales.
Seven Native storytellers are in three of the upcoming episodes in time for Native American Heritage Month in November.
The episode “On Sacred Ground,” which first aired Oct. 23, includes three storytellers from Lincoln, Nebraska: award-winning journalist Kevin Abourezk, Rosebud Lakota Nation and deputy managing editor at ICT; artist Colleen New Holy, Oglala Sioux Tribe of Pine Ridge, South Dakota; and beading teacher Valery Killscrow Copeland, Oglala-Lakota Sioux Tribe.
Beading teacher Valery Killscrow Copeland, Oglala-Lakota Sioux, is among seven Native people featured in Season 7 of “Stories from the Stage,” the WORLD storytelling series that finds ordinary Americans on stage recounting their extraordinary tales. She is featured in the episode “On Sacred Ground,” which aired Oct. 23, 2023. (Photo by Patricia Alvarado, courtesy of WORLD)
Abourezk details his work to rally his Native community to oppose a massive housing development on tribal land in Lincoln. New Holy details the judgment heaped on traditional healing through stories of her mother, noted activist and educator Reneé Sans Souci, and her work as an educator preserving Native culture.
Killscrow Copeland takes viewers on a hike … that’s interrupted by Bigfoot!?
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A second Native episode, “Sacred Circle,” airs on Nov. 13. It opens with Omaha resident Levelle Wells, an Afro-Indigenous member of the Omaha Tribe and president of the Big Elk Native American nonprofit, as he finds a path to meaning, healing and helping after prison.
Related stories:
—’War Pony’ tells dark tale of the rez
—’Bones of Crows’ explores Canada’s residential schools
—Indian Land art installation calls for return of lands
Filmmaker and University of Kansas assistant professor Rebekka Schlichting, of the Ioway Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska, honors the keeper of the connection between her people and culture.
The episode closes with Los Angeles resident Charlie Perry, who has light skin and hair, as he reflects on trying to be accepted by fellow members of the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation of Mayetta, Kansas.
The Nov. 20 episode, “All Connected,” includes Arizona resident Kyle Mitchell, a Diné storyteller and Army veteran who shares the love and wisdom he received on the Navajo reservation.
Season 7 premiered on Monday, Oct. 16, on YouTube, worldchannel.org and the PBS app. Episodes continue to air, streaming weekly through June 2024.
For listening, “Stories from the Stage: The Podcast,” includes interviews, reflections and more from series co-creators and podcast co-hosts Patricia Alvarado Núñez and Liz Cheng. Or catch select stories on Fridays on “The World,” a globally-focused radio program from PRX and GBH.
FILM: Red Nation festival opens Nov. 1
The Red Nation Film Festival is gearing up for a full month of screenings, events, awards and streaming in Beverly Hills, California, starting Nov. 1.
The Red Nation Film Festival will kick the showings of featured Native films on Nov. 3, 2023, with a screening of “Four Souls of Coyote,” at The Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills, California. The festival will host a full month of screenings, events, awards and streaming. (Photo courtesy of Red Nation Film Festival)
The festival is dedicated to breaking the barrier of racism by replacing Native stereotypes with recognition, new vision, arts, culture and economic prosperity. They particularly champion Native women in film and television.
The festival will kick off Nov. 1 with Only One Water Virtual Summit by the innovative industry think tank, uniting Indigenous filmmakers, creatives, and communities from around the world to envision fresh climate narratives and explore the economic potential of green energy.
On Nov. 2, a Film Market will be held at the Hilton Hotel in Santa Monica.
Film screenings will begin on Nov. 3, with all showings at The Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills. The awards ceremony is Nov. 12, and streaming of the films runs Nov. 13-30.
The screenings will kick off Nov. 3 with “Four Souls of Coyote,” billed as an epic adventure based on a Native creation myth. Set in the present day, Native people confront the crew of an oil pipeline project, near the land of their ancestors. Through adventures filled with animals, magic, hunger, greed and the sacred circle of creation, the story gives hope that humans can correct their course.
Also on Nov. 3 is “Finality of Dusk, ” set in the year 2045 amidst environmental devastation. It tells the story of Ishkode and her unlikely companion Niife, who join forces on what is left of the land to save themselves by protecting each other.
A spotlight screening on Nov. 7 will feature “War Pony,” the interlocking stories of two young Oglala Lakota men growing up on the Pine Ridge Reservation, directed by Gina Gammell and Riley Keough.
The closing night of screenings on Nov. 11 features “Bones of Crows,” which examines Canada’s residential school system. The film follows musical prodigy Aline and her journey from child to matriarch after she and her siblings are removed from their family home and forced into residential schools. It’s a moving, multi-generational tale of resilience, survival and the pursuit of justice.
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