Radical Indigenous Imagination Igniting the 8th Fire
2022 Conference Blog
Tram Nguyen
Long before colonizers came to Turtle Island, a series of prophesies were given to the Anishinaabe people.
“They foretold of eras or fires that would come to pass, leading to a crossroads in which human beings would have to exercise our gift of free will to determine our collective future.” So began the keynote panel organized by NDN Collective on Indigenous People’s Day.
We are currently in the era of the seventh fire, a time in which humanity will have to choose between two paths—one that leads to death, destruction, and the poisoning of the land, air and water. Or a path that leads to lighting the eighth fire and an era of balance, peace and harmony.
The panel featured four artists from NDN Collective’s Radical Imagination Grant, a year-long grant that provides Native artists with $50,000 in support of projects that amplify community voices and utilize art and creativity to practice justice, imagine and propose solutions to dismantling racism and building a better world.
As Sarah Sunshine Manning (Shoshone-Paiute), NDN Collective’s director of communications, said: “Art is truly interwoven into every part of our lives as indigenous people. It’s how we start our day, pray, organize and resist, tell stories, celebrate, how we express ourselves, set intentions and radically imagine a future for all people.”
But in this time of crisis and transformation, the seventh fire, indigenous artists also have a uniquely powerful role of pushing limits and creating the spaces for radical imagination to usher in the era of the eighth fire.
(L-R) Jordan Brien, Sarah Manning, Will Wilson, Marca Cassity and Frank Waln open up the keynote presentation, Lighting the 8th Fire Through Indigenous Arts for the New York Grantmakers in the Arts Conference on Monday, October 10, 2022.
Photo by Erica Pretty Eagle Cozad for NDN Collective.
In that spirit, hip-hop artist Mic Jordan (Ojibwe/Anishinaabe) gave an opening performance set to scenes from NDN Collective’s protest in July 2020, when more than 200 indigenous people blockaded a highway in the Black Hills of South Dakota to challenge Donald Trump’s visit to Mount Rushmore.
Marca Cassity (Osage) shared music from their folk-rock-electronic album about Two-Spirit belonging and its connection to decolonization. Gender diverse people were thriving before colonization; Cassity noted that in 2020, 30% of Native LGBTQ youth attempted suicide. To not only continue to exist, but to thrive and stand in their power as Two-Spirit people is itself an act of radical imagination.
Frank Waln (Sicangu Lakota), whose great grandmother went to her grave never speaking her Lakota language after coming back from boarding school, decided to write a song entirely in Lakota and performed it during the panel. With its call and response, “Now we thrive, now we prosper” was a powerful demonstration of art healing the past and reclaiming the future, one in which the Lakota language and other indigenous languages are alive, spoken and shared.
Will Wilson’s (Diné) photographs of the abandoned uranium mines on the Navajo reservation are a haunting visual representation of the catastrophic destruction Native peoples have already borne and continue to endure, living amid radioactive un-remediated mines and contaminated water and toxic dust on their lands. Yet his photos are also a platform for voices of resilience, indigenous knowledge, and innovative solutions that center Diné ways of knowing.
“We understand what it means to endure apocalypse and to translate that into roadmaps to guide the way into systemwide transformation,” Wilson said. “Photography has been an essential way to bear witness, which is absolutely necessary for the next phase, which is truth telling, before reconciliation.”
Because the NDN Collective is powerful like that, they always close their talks with a call to action—one that challenges us all to think and act on the radical meaning of the #LANDBACK movement.
Whether it be protection, resources and allyship for Two-Spirit people to step into visibility, or expanding and deepening commitments to create sustained systems of funding for indigenous arts, #LANDBACK is a call to action with an open hand and open heart to center the leadership and the offerings of indigenous people to our world.
“We are here to ensure that you make the right choice to ignite the eighth fire. In our gift of free will to choose which path to take, there is hope.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tram Nguyen joins us from Oakland, CA for the virtual track of the 2022 GIA Conference.
She currently works in the Health Equity, Policy, & Planning team in the Office of the Director, Alameda County Public Health Department.
ABOUT THE CONFERENCE
The 2022 GIA Annual Conference begins on Thursday, October 6 and runs through Wednesday, October 12. In the meantime, get familiar with our virtual portal and check out the in-person sessions!
You can follow the convening and join the conversation using the hashtags #ConvergeTransform and #GIArts2022 on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. And, don’t forget to visit the Conference Blog for stories and reporting from the in-person and virtual conference tracks throughout the week.
