STTLMNT and RED BRIGADE FILMS PRESENTS:
Razelle Benally’s Director's Cut world premiere and live zoom conversation  

SATURDAY, 29 MAY
7:00 pm BST, UK / 2:00pm EST, US 

We invite our communities to engage in the work of STTLMNT participating artist Razelle Benally through an exclusive viewing experience of a 30 minute Directors Cut Film, documenting over 17 STTLMNT participating artists on their homelands or in their studios across Turtle Island (North America). 

Director Razelle Benally will premiere a very special Directors Cut using footage she has gathered over the course of her work on the STTLMNT x Red Brigade Films short documentary series, incorporating behind the scenes and previously unseen footage. 

“The STTLMNT video series is not only a response to the current state of the world, but illuminates the proactive nature and resilience of the Indigenous artists, bringing back a sense of unity in a time where social engagement has been limited. This short non-fiction narrative is intended to provide additional access to artists of the STTLMNT Digital Occupation” -Razelle Benally, Director-Red Brigade Films

The STTLMNT short documentary series was created by Red Brigade Films Director Razelle Benally as she traveled across Turtle Island (North America) for over a year, gathering footage and stories of STTLMNT participating Indigenous artists in their homelands and studios to spotlight their work and stories, producing a gorgeous series of short documentaries for the STTLMNT Digital Occupation. 

The Director's Cut premiere is a culmination of Director Razelle Benally’s work on the STTLMNT project through Red Brigade Films and celebrates the end of our program season.

Following the Directors Cut film premiere, STTLMNT Native American lead/concept artist Cannupa Hanska Luger will speak with Razelle Benally about the work of the Red Brigade Films series and reflect on the overall STTLMNT Digital Occupation. We will finish out the event program with an open dialogue Q&A inviting audience participation, and invite reflections by the UK producers, The Conscious Sisters, and we will end this even with Cannupa Hanska Luger giving closing remarks and reflection on the project.

Q&A with performance artist Dakota Camacho on their new film- ETAK; triangulating our relationship through time, past, present, future, always transforming.

23rd of March -7-8pm GMT
Q&A between the community of Plymouth, UK and artist Dakota Camacho.

In this live conversation, artist Dakota Camacho will talk with the community in Plymouth, UK about the ethos behind their film Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant, unfolding the meanings behind the poetry and visuals in the film and will break down the pillars of their culture they access in performance and life, including the terms Ináfa’maolek, inágofli’e, & ináguaiya. 

In this live conversation Dakota will unfold meanings behind the poetry and visuals in the film and will break down the pillars of their culture, they access in performance and life, including the terms Ináfa’maolek, inágofli’e, & ináguaiya. 

The film ETAK should be watched before the Q&A and will be available on the sttlmnt website -www.sttlmnt.org- from the 13th of March together with the exclusive premiere of a pre-recorded live zoom event hosted on the video premiere date(15th of March 2021-60 mins). The zoom recording will feature seven performance artists, cultural bearers and scholars with global ties in indigeneity, tuning in from Micronesia and throughout North America. project link

Dakota Camacho presents, Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant 

Etak (pronounced Eh-tack) loosely translates as triangulation and is a Micronesian seafaring technology, used in relationship to understanding the ocean-going vessels' relationship to the movement of space and time. 

“My family taught me to plot our course to home through building beautiful relationships to spaces, places, and kin. Ináfa’maolek is the energy that flows from our cultural practices. 

I endeavor to understand my relationship to being a good human by triangulating my relationship to the peoples, languages, cultural practices, and lands where I have experienced inágofli’e & ináguaiya. Ináfa’maolek.” -Dakota Camacho

Etak is ritual. It is the process of deeply understanding the world around us, in relationship to self and to each other, to the land and the water. In this awareness we find our place and purpose, we create the space for the co-creation of knowledge, compassion, and understanding. When we come together, we are deepening our relationships to each other. 

This work invites us into contemplation of our belonging: How does an Indigenous body exist with the land and the water? How do we exist with it instead of extract from it? How do we remember our ceremonies? Where do we go to regenerate our Indigeneity (outside of our ancestral lands).

(As listed above, both the Etak short film and the pre-recorded Indigenous community engagement will be ready to experience by the Plymouth community in preparation for the third portion of the program at www.sttlmnt.org/projects/malie)

DAKOTA CAMACHO PRESENTS, ETAK VIDEO AND LIVE MULTINATIONAL ZOOM CONVERSATION

We invite our communities to engage in the work of STTLMNT participating artist Dakota Camacho through Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant; a poetic recitation of ecologies relating to navigation, journey, lineage, birth and chosen kinship through extensive travel across the globe.

JOIN ETAK EVENT LIVE VIA YOUTUBE LIVE or FB LIVE
FRIDAY, MARCH 12 2021 - 5:30pm PST / 8:30pm EST + SATURDAY MARCH 13 2021 - 11:30 AM CHST

90 MINUTE LIVE ZOOM ENGAGEMENT

Artist Dakota Camacho will premiere their short film, Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant anchoring a very special live Zoom engagement featuring performance, artist talks and storytelling presented by artists, cultural bearers and scholars with global ties in Indigeneity, tuning in from Micronesia and throughout North America including; Cannupa Hanska Luger, Monaeka Flores, Ojeya Cruz Banks, Gabriel Teodros, Vince Díaz and Dakota Camacho. 

Etak (pronounced Eh-tack) loosely translates as triangulation and is a Micronesian seafaring technology, used in relationship to understanding the ocean-going vessel’s relationship to the movement of space and time. Etak is built upon the ethos in Micronesia that the canoe is stable and the universe moves around the canoe, this is a vessel for traveling through space and time, through the world as an Indigenous person who is of a global community yet from a specific place. 

In presenting this work and engagement, Dakota Camacho reflects, “This gathering will be a digital space for the co-creation of Indigenous knowledge and the understanding of our relationship to each other, as if all our canoes, waters and lands are moving in relationship to one another…” 

This program invites us into contemplation of our belonging: How does an Indigenous body exist with the land and the water? How do we exist with it instead of extract from it? How do we remember our ceremonies? Where do we go to regenerate our Indigeneity (outside of our ancestral lands). 

“My family taught me to plot our course to home through building beautiful relationships to spaces, places, and kin. Ináfa’maolek is the energy that flows from our cultural practices. 

I endeavor to understand my relationship to being a good human by triangulating my relationship to the peoples, languages, cultural practices, and lands where I have experienced inágofli’e & ináguaiya.  Ináfa’maolek.” -Dakota Camacho

For artist Dakota Camacho, presenting Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant through STTLMNT Digital Occupation is personal. They are making and sharing this work to more deeply understand the purpose of life's journey and to further their connections across the world, reflecting, ‘What does place based Indigeneity mean to a person who navigates the globe encountering many cultures, communities, and histories and what are our responsibilities to extended kinships beyond a specific geography. Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant is the cinematographic articulation of the ceremony of gratitude to all the lineages that inform my body, mind, and spirit. This work is an offering, a deep sharing, a development of meditations on protocol, togetherness, of working towards making kin with one another, of entering into community, of practicing accountability, and of building a vision for the future that celebrates the possibilities of our collective liberation.” 

Etak: an [un]traditional Micronesian Navigation Chant engages a poetic recitation of wild ecologies relating to navigation, journey, lineage, birth and chosen kinship through extensive travel across the globe. It is a story of genealogy, of the vast heritage and culture beacons that inform and guide an understanding of what it means to be Indigenous. The visuals inform the poem, centering around the cultures and the places which guide and extend our collective worldview -- a portrait of how human beings are regenerated as we collaborate in solidarity with the elements. There is a reverence between us, the land and the more than human environment; we are our ancestors. This work reminds us that we are informed by the natural environment around us, we must pay respect to that root part of us, and always return. 

Etak is ritual. It is the process of deeply understanding the world around us, in relationship to self and to each other, to the land and the water. In this awareness we find our place and purpose, we create the space for the co-creation of knowledge, compassion, and understanding. When we come together, we are deepening our relationships to each other.

Gratitude 

MALI’E’ | ETAK is supported by a National Performance Network (NPN) Documentation & Storytelling Fund grant. The Documentation & Storytelling Fund is supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. For more information, visit npnweb.org

The Ways We Love and The Ways We Love Better, Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s) 

This International screening and live witnessing event will take place online at 7pm Plymouth, UK // 2pm EST NYC US

You are invited to a screening of the film performance, The Ways We Love and The Ways We Love Better, Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s), followed by a responsive witnessing with Karyn Recollet, Emily Johnson, Dylan Robinson and Camille Georgeson-Usher. In partnership with Digital Hub and Socrates Sculpture Park.

Emily Johnson will be joined by the BODY of SCHOLARSHIP - Indigenous futurists, visionary thinkers and organizers:

Karyn Recollet is an urban Cree scholar/artist/and writer, Recollet’s work focuses on relationality and care as both an analytic and technology for Indigenous movement-based forms of inquiry within urban spaces. Recollet works collaboratively with Indigenous dance-makers and scholars to theorize forms of urban glyphing. Recollet is in conversation with dance choreographers, Black and Indigenous futurist thinkers and Indigenous and Black geographers as ways to theorize and activate futurist, feminist, celestial and decolonial land-ing relationships with more-than-human kinships, and each other.

Dylan Robinson is a Stó:lō scholar who holds the Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Arts at Queen’s University, located on the traditional lands of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabe peoples. Dr. Robinson’s current research project documents the history of contemporary Indigenous public art across North America, and questions how Indigenous rights and settler colonialism are embodied and spatialized in public space. Dr. Robinson is also an avid Halq'eméylem language learner. Yú:wqwlha kws t'í:lemtel te sqwá:ltset!

Camille Georgeson-Usher is a Coast Salish/Sahtu Dene/Scottish scholar, artist, and writer from Galiano Island, BC of the Pune’laxutth’ (Penelakut) Nation. She completed her MA in Art History at Concordia University where she worked to prove the impact of the performing arts in building confidence and leadership amongst Indigenous youth by learning to talk/embody discussions about safer sexual practices. She is currently a PhD candidate in the Cultural Studies department at Queen’s University and has been awarded the Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarships-Doctoralfor her research-creation workaround urban Indigenous experiences within Indigenous arts collectives and other groups activating public spaces through gestures both little and big. Her artistic and curatorial practices are predominantly looking through acts of deep, loving convergences with colleague Asinnajaq (Isabella Weetaluktuk).

Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation) is Associate Professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University. His research focuses on the intersections of kinship, gender, sexuality, and race in Latin America, 19th century literature and culture, queer studies, Indigenous studies, and hemispheric approaches to citizenship and belonging. He is the author of Argentine Intimacies: Queer Kinship in an Age of Splendor, 1890-1910 (SUNY Press, 2019) and co-editor of Políticas del amor: Derechos sexuales y escrituras disidentes en el Cono Sur (Cuarto Propio, 2018) as well as the forthcoming special issue of GLQ, “Queer/Cuir Américas: Translation, Decoloniality, and the Incommensurable.” Along with SJ Norman (Koori, Wiradjuri descent) he is co-curator of the performance series Knowledge of Wounds.

The Ways We Love and The Ways We Love Better, Monumental Movement Toward Being Future Being(s)

Performed by Emily Johnson and Angel Acuña, Nia-Selassi Clark, Linda LaBeija, Denaysha Macklin, Annie Ming-Hao Wang, Angelica Mondol Viaña, Ashley Pierre-Louis, Katrina Reid, Kim Savarino, Sasha Smith, Stacy Lynn Smith, Paul Aster Stone-Tsao, Kim Velsey, Sugar Vendil

Invocation by Nanate River
Garments and Masks by Jeffrey Gibson
Sculpture by Jeffrey Gibson

Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House, 2020.
Plywood, posters, steel, LEDs, and performances, 44 x 44 x 21 ft.

Original performance presented by Socrates Sculpture Park, NY, September 16, 2020

Here Song is an interactive app for your mobile device created by artists Cannupa Hanska Luger & Ginger Dunnill with the support of Flux Projects. Using this application connects the user to place through unique coding which encourages users to scan the world around them and create a one of a kind sound composition to map the land. The practice of studying horizon-lines from which to create sonic experience and melody is a technology developed by Luger’s ancestors, the people of the Northern Plains tribes of North America. In developing this project Luger and Dunnill will invite a selection of leading Indigenous composers and musicians to create sounds which will be used in the application, allowing the user to engage with the artist’s work while weaving new sonic stories that engage directly with the land.

Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger has been part of the Flux Projects Flux Exchange low residency since 2018, and the work Here Song is developed through that program.

*Launch date subject to change

STTLMNT Indigenous concept artist Cannupa Hanska Luger sits down with Love & Fury Director Sterlin Harjo to discuss what it was like for Harjo to create a film about contemporary Native American artists from across North America.

• This is the premiere of a prerecorded Zoom conversation on the making of Love & Fury, published on the Love & Fury project page as part of STTLMNT Digital Occupation.

About Love & Fury:

Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo follows Native artists as they navigate their careers in the US and abroad. The film explores the immense complexities each artist faces of their own identity as Native artists, as well as, advancing Native art into a post-colonial world.

DIRECTORS NOTE: The film is a conversation that I’ve wanted to have for a long time. Native art has been shackled to history by a false vision of what Native people are through the settler gaze of our current reality. I wanted to make something bold and in your face, directly putting up a finger to the shackles of the art world and historic representation of our people. We are diverse, we are dark, we are beautiful and so is our artwork.

We are human beings. 

DIRECTOR  - Sterlin Harjo 

EXECUTIVE PRODUCER - Robin Ballenger  

RUNTIME- 93 minutes

Throughout the STTLMNT winter program, participating artist Haley Greenfeather English will construct a contemporary wigwam structure and present video documentation of the creation process in through VLOG entries throughout the winter months.

Presented on this day will be a NEW wiGw@m VLOG updates!

By weaving together ancestral architecture and her own aesthetic the structure will be built at her home in the forest of Tijeras, New Mexico. The wiGw@m will hold space for English’s late maternal and paternal grandparents. It will symbolize reclamation of culture and reconciliation between settler and Native American families by interpreting narratives of kinship existing within her own Indigenous and non-Indigenous family history.

 |-|—|-| aHome4Her; [for/four]  project update

“Over the course STTLMNT, I will be welcoming you to the story of |-|—|-| aHome4Her; [for/four]. “ Eric-Paul Riege

Red Brigade Films short documentary featuring Nani Chacon

Diné and Xicana artist Nanibah "Nani" Chacon is most recognized as a painter, muralist, and installation artist. Often creating works that are both site specific and community engaged, with integration of socio political issues affecting women and indigenous peoples. Nani often collaborates with her sister Autumn Chacon through design based electronic installations called HÓLÓ which incorporate the use of sound and/or radio frequencies.

Director Razelle Benally from Red Brigade Films, says:

“The STTLMNT video series is not only a response to the current state of the world, but illuminates the proactive nature and resilience of the artists, bringing back a sense of unity in a time where social engagement is limited.”

Directed/Produced by STTLMNT Artist Razelle Benally with Cinematographer/Assistant Adam Conte
Executive Producer is Ginger Dunnill

Red Brigade Films short documentary series releases a new feature each week through our Winter Program.

This is the final Each/Other sewing circle hosted by UK collaborators and Plymouth-based collective The Conscious Sisters.

This online sewing circle will feature an opportunity to contribute to a monumental artwork while engaging in a global conversation including participation by Each/Other concept artists Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger who will join the digital sewing circle in gratitude to all the stitches the Plymouth community has contributed to the project over the last five weeks.

This sewing circle will be held via Zoom at 6:30 pm GMT (UK), which is 10:30 am PST (USA)

Join this sewing circle by logging onto Zoom at the listed date and start time. No pre-registration required.

Each/Other sewing circles have been held in Plymouth, UK and hosted online by Melinda Schwakhofer, an American artist and citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation with Austrian-American ancestry, who now lives and works on Dartmoor in the UK. Through her personal artistic journey, she has found that community involvement, social engagement and deep healing can be achieved through art making.  Co-hosting has been Karen Evans, lead artist for Plymouth-based The Conscious Sisters who is producing the UK engagement programme for Settlement.  She has worked in communities for over 25 years and specialises in socially engaged practice.

Share your work for each/other on social media and tag #EachOtheratDAM

for more information email hello@theconscioussisters.com  

RIVERS PIERCING TWIRL Premiere song release from the developing album WHIRLWIND SMOKES THE SOUND WAVES now available to purchase.

Laura Ortman is collaborating with other STTLMNT artists on a new album in music, sound, artworks, broadcast, conversation, movement, and beyond.

“Encompassing ideas of the intention to express a story and soundtrack of STTLMNT is a circle that is going to be heard. Making this album throughout the occupation helps capture times that enlivens worlds that creates beliefs of where we are, where we are from and its ingrained messages of existence.” -Laura Ortman

Yatika Starr Fields will premiere the third mural for his ongoing Effigy pot Tour. This mural will be dropping in Cherokee Nation, Tahlequah, Oklahoma.

Stay tuned for more details on mural location!

Blood Memory app expands to include natural spaces in Central Park, Plymouth, UK!

Interact with Blood Memory stories while engaging with the land.

Red Brigade Films short documentary featuring Ian Kuali’i

Ian Kuali’i is a multi-disciplinary self-taught artist of Hawaiian/Apache ancestry whose career spans two decades working in the forms of murals, large-scale cut-paper, prints, and site-specific installations. While trying to simplify his technique as a graffiti writer, Ian discovered stenciling and realized that he appreciated the “cut” more than the spray, thus finding his preferred medium – hand-cut paper. Over the past year Kuali'i has been in the process of transforming his art practice to include large scale land art prayer installations.

Director Razelle Benally from Red Brigade Films, says:

“The STTLMNT video series is not only a response to the current state of the world, but illuminates the proactive nature and resilience of the artists, bringing back a sense of unity in a time where social engagement is limited.”

Directed/Produced by STTLMNT Artist Razelle Benally with Cinematographer/Assistant Adam Conte
Executive Producer is Ginger Dunnill

Red Brigade Films short documentary series releases a new feature each week through our Winter Program.

Red Brigade Films short documentary featuring Dylan McLaughlin

Dylan McLaughlin is a video artist working to foster creative processes that inform multi-media installation, interactive, and performative works. McLaughlin is born of the Diné (Navajo) people. He received his BFA in New Media Art from the Institute of American Indian Arts and is pursuing an MFA in Art & Ecology at the University of New Mexico. His practice is rooted in place-based and land-responsive sound art, engaging through new media and performance the concepts that plants produce and detect frequencies for root growth and distress calls, and how human beings have disrupted this landscape communication with resonant infrastructure and deforestation.  

Director from Red Brigade Films, says:

“The STTLMNT video series is not only a response to the current state of the world, but illuminates the proactive nature and resilience of the artists, bringing back a sense of unity in a time where social engagement is limited.”

Directed/Produced by STTLMNT Artist Razelle Benally with Cinematographer/Assistant Adam Conte
Executive Producer is Ginger Dunnill
Music featured by Dylan McLaughlin

Red Brigade Films short documentary series releases a new feature each week through our Winter Program.

Red Brigade Films short documentary featuring Raven Chacon

Raven Chacon is a composer, performer and installation artist from Fort Defiance, Navajo Nation. As a solo artist, collaborator, or with Postcommodity, Chacon has exhibited or performed at Whitney Biennial, documenta 14, REDCAT, Musée d’art Contemporain de Montréal, San Francisco Electronic Music Festival, Chaco Canyon, Ende Tymes Festival, 18th Biennale of Sydney, and The Kennedy Center. Every year, he teaches 20 students to write string quartets for the Native American Composer Apprenticeship Project (NACAP). He is the recipient of the United States Artists fellowship in Music, The Creative Capital award in Visual Arts, The Native Arts and Cultures Foundation artist fellowship, and the American Academy’s Berlin Prize for Music Composition. Director Razelle Benally has documented 4 Regions of Turtle Island, creating a series of mini docs featuring over a dozen of the participants.

Razelle Benally, “STTLMNT” film series Director from Red Brigade Films, says:

“The STTLMNT video series is not only a response to the current state of the world, but illuminates the proactive nature and resilience of the artists, bringing back a sense of unity in a time where social engagement is limited.”

Directed/Produced by STTLMNT Artist Razelle Benally with Cinematographer/Assistant Adam Conte
Executive Producer is Ginger Dunnill
Music featured by Raven Chacon

Red Brigade Films short documentary series releases a new feature each week through our Winter Program.

Denver Art Museum Presents: Virtual Sewing Circle with Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger

Join artists Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger for a virtual sewing circle and contribute to their collaborative artwork for the Each/Other exhibition.

During this event, participants will embroider a word, message, or visual sentiment onto a bandana. The sewing circle is open to everyone, all ages and no experience is required.

What you will need:

• A Bandana or piece of cloth roughly 22” x 22”

• Embroidery needle and thread (hoop is optional)

• A story to share

Register HERE - Zoom link will be sent one hour before the event.

Premiere of STTLMNT: An Indigenous Digital Occupation

Tuesday, October 13th, 3-4:30 PM EST

Registration link: https://bit.ly/STTLMNT; registrants will receive the Zoom link one day prior to event

Celebrate the launch of STTLMNT, a new, online platform featuring 30 contemporary Indigenous artists, going live October 13th. Join moderator Prerana Reddy, A Blade of Grass Director of Programs, with organizing artist Cannupa Hanska Luger and collaborators for a preview of STTLMNT’s representation of complex, living Indigenous cultures, and the Indigenous-led new media, theory, and contemporary art “digital occupation” taking place at www.sttlmnt.org. A project two years in the making, originally planned as month-long encampment in Plymouth, UK, to take place this summer within the context of the commemoration events for the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s voyage to the so-called “New World,” STTLMNT was intended to go beyond conversations of decolonization and actively practice Indigenization as a radically immersive onsite experience. With the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the participating artists have nimbly adapted their projects to instead engage this issue over the fall and winter through a succession of online performances, artist discussions, social engagement, mini docs, and new work that invite audiences, globally, to engage with the diverse, complicated, and intersectional art and reality of the Indigenous peoples of North America and the Pacific. 

The 90-minute event on Zoom will include a live performance of new music by Laura Ortman; screening of a trailer and discussion with filmmaker Razelle Benally, who has traveled around the country documenting artists at home; a discussion of active, non-extractive, collaborative creative work with STTLMNT artists Cannupa Hanska Luger, Marie Watt, and Emily Johnson; concluding with perspectives from UK collaborators Karen and Fiona Evans, known as The Consciousness Sisters collective, discussing how their Clan-Kind project helps people living in Plymouth develop a deeper connection between place & community by bringing together diverse groups to learn about the natural or built heritage, including acknowledgement of the legacy of indigenous Welsh heritage. The event also includes an opportunity and call to action to participate in the each/other collaborative artwork, under the direction of Luger and Watt, to be featured in their forthcoming dual-exhibition at the Denver Art Museum in 2021.

The event is presented by STTLMNT, with special thanks to its US Producer, Ginger Dunnill, A Blade of Grass, and Printed Matter. Participants will also receive a digital copy of the fall 2020 issue of A Blade of Grass Magazine, “Confronting Enemies,” featuring an interview with Prerana Reddy and Cannupa Hanska Luger, available also for download on abladeofgrass.org and at printedmatter.org.