Tim
Re-Kinning: anti-colonial art practices and Indigenizing dominate culture
Thursday, September 18 Timebuddy
United States: 10am HDT, 1pm PDT, 2pm MDT, 3pm CDT, 4pm EDT
Europe: 21:00 BST Australia: Friday, September 19, 6:00am AEST
Leah Mata Fragua, Carol Padberg, Anne Mavor
This fall we will explore through a series of dialogues, with our members and guest speakers, how a movement of Indigenizing dominate culture can encourage a greater balance between humans and the more-than-human world.
This month we will hear from two of our member artists whose work examines the effects of settler colonialism on family histories and self-knowledge/skill building. Each artist and educators, Carol Padberg, will present her Mess Kit for Settlers, and Anne Mavor, her series I AM MY WHITE ANCESTORS. Artist and Indigenous culture bearer Leah Mata Fragua (Northern Chumash), will act as a respondent, and together we will explore how Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) can inform art practices, as well as contribute to a movement of Indigenizing dominate culture.
Each presenter will have approximately 15 minutes to discuss their work, then 15 minutes of response, with audience participation following.
Member respondent
Leah Mata Fragua is an artist, educator, and member of the yak tityu tityu yak tiłhini (Northern Chumash) tribe located on the Central California Coast. As a place-based artist, Leah’s kincentric approach seamlessly blends shared iconography with personal imagery, highlighting the impact each has on the other. She uses a diverse range of materials, from place-based to recycled, to explore the interconnectedness and dependence between land, kinships, and self. She understands that her art is a reflection of the way she prioritizes the protection of traditional materials and the continuation of art forms that are important to her community, which intersect with her individual practice. Leah holds a BA in anthropology, an MA in Cultural Sustainability, and an MFA from The Institute of American Indian Arts in the Studio Arts program. Leah's work is held in the collections of the Autry Museum, Tia Collection, Denver Art Museum, The Hood Museum, and private collections. www.leahmata.com
Member presenters
Carol Padberg is an artist, writer and educator. Padberg weaves with Oyster mushrooms, using yarn from her sheep that is colored by plants from her dye fields and incorporates fungi from the Jemez Mountains. As an herbalist she crafts remedies from cultivated and foraged herbs in the tradition of the Green Witch. Her art practice includes making regenerative textiles using ancestral spinning and weaving technologies, and walking the Questa Mine Superfund Site area where she weaves her letters to that mountain with drone imagery of remediation work. She recently developed the Mess Kit for Settlers, an artwork that straddles poetic and practical interventions for descendants of settlers. As an educator she has developed anticolonial, place-based pedagogies. She founded the international Confluence MFA (UNM 2022-2025) and the Nomad MFA (Hartford Art School 2015-2022). Her art has been the subject of exhibitions at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts, and the New Britain Museum of American Art. Her initiatives have been featured at the Walker Art Center, MoMA, and the Creative Time Summit at the Venice Biennale. Her recent writings can be found in the Multispecies Storytelling in Intermedial Practices (Punctum Press, 2022), EcoArt in Action: Activities, Case Studies and Provocations for Classrooms and Communities (NYU Press, 2022) and The New Farmer’s Almanac (Greenhorns Press, 2023). Upcoming book contributions include ‘Dark Mountain: Uncivilization’ and a chapter addressing art research methodologies in an upcoming book from Intellect Press. A mother of three adult children and a grandmother, she shepherds on unceded Tiwa land in Ranchos de Taos , New Mexico. https://www.carolpadberg.com
Anne Mavor is a visual artist and writer based in Portland, Oregon. Following the feminist art maxim, the personal is political, she makes art to understand the world around her and to heal herself. Her installations, books, performances, and wall pieces arise from personal vulnerability and historical inquiry to contradict oppressive systems such as sexism, disability, and racism, amongst many other subjects. I AM MY WHITE ANCESTORS: Claiming the Legacy of Oppression is a touring installation of thirteen life-size photographic portraits and audio diaries exploring European-American heritage, and the history of race, class, colonization, and genocide spanning over 2000 years. In the photographs, Anne embodies each character to illustrate beliefs being passed down through the generations. The audio diaries reveal the historical events and traumas that shaped each ancestor and caused them to act out oppressive behaviors. Her current project, PLANTS MY PEOPLE BROUGHT HERE, focuses on understanding and mending the colonizer loss of home through reconnection with plants. The project is an ongoing series of botanical contact prints of introduced plants that originated in Europe and are now common in Oregon. Anne has a BA in art from Kirkland College and an MFA in creative writing from Antioch University, Los Angeles. Originally from Massachusetts, in 1976 she moved to Los Angeles to join the Feminist Studio Workshop at The Woman’s Building. www.annemavor.com
This event is free for members + one guest. $5 for non-members. All participants MUST REGISTER.
