Transitioning from Autumn to Winter with Tara A. Chadwick

From Autumn to Winter with Tara A. Chadwick

For immediate release

Tuesday, December 13, 2022

Fort Lauderdale, FL. 

The Fall season is always a busy time in Florida as it marks not only the start of the annual stretch of well loved winter holidays but also the beginning of the height of the arts, culture and tourism season here in the Sunshine State. After two years of precautious, arms length and virtual engagements due to pandemic health concerns, this autumn feels like it was the busiest on record. Coming out of a whirlwind world tour that started in Lee County last October and ended last week in Wynwood, visual and performance works of Tara A. Chadwick made stops in Hong Kong, Sydney, London, Zurich, Laguna Beach, Rome, Palma de Mallorca and the Milk of Dreams Venice Biennale along the way. Installation and performance work was manifested locally at Miami Beach Botanical Garden, Greenspace Miami, downtown Fort Lauderdale, Miramar and Everglades National Park. Collaborations are ongoing and developing. Follow and message me on instagram for invitations & inquiries!

Below are a few key highlights of the year in review:

• Upcoming intergenerational enrichment experience exploring winter science & celebrations at Sunset Lakes Community Center next Wednesday, December 21st at 10:30-11:30 am.
• Chono Thlee: Sparking a New Era in Seminole Art exhibition curated by Tara Chadwick on view through January 10th at History Fort Lauderdale.
• Digital art (custom limited edition prints available) on view last week in Wynwood during the 20th anniversary of Art Basel Miami Beach in Tara A. Chadwick at Artbox Project Miami (virtual tour).
• Papalotl (Butterfly) Project Social Innovation Fellow at Cogenerate.

Special thanks to Akeesha Nadjiwon Footman for being the first to add one of the limited edition Matriarch prints to her prestigious Canadian fine art collection. And to each and every one of you who keeps on supporting me through the many ideas, goals and the often intense work that goes into making those dreams become our reality. I am so thankful for YOU. Let's keep on building wider, stronger, smarter, together!

pic courtesy M. Chadwick

RSVP to wabigun@yahoo.com

See you on December 21st!

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Last week to see #Matriarch on view in Venice, Italy

For immediate release:

Fort Lauderdale, Florida 

May 27th, 2022

Posted by Tara Chadwick

Amid all the tragic crises we are experiencing in our communities and around the world, our unfolding,  as a conscious, compassionate, caring species is in a process of emergence. We are as yet incapable of creating the conditions necessary for completing our collective pursuit of competence as an interconnected variable within the web of life however, all the potential to achieve our goal of becoming human beings lies within us! We need to realize, observe, analyze and heal. Then inevitably, one at a time, and together, we will take flight!

During the pandemic, while the pre-COVID norms of in-person meetings, classes and presentations were unsafe to facilitate, my daily walks became a disciplined meditation allowing me to focus on  what is happening in the microcosm surrounding me. The #Matriarch series is a reflection of the hope and beauty I continue to see in nature at a time when human grief seems insurmountable.

The attached exhibition review is my third in Venice this year, starting with the Venice Experimental Video and Performance Art Festival on opening day of the Biennale de Venezia last month, continuing with a digital display at the Biennale Artbox Expo at Spazio Tana just over the footbridge from Arsenale, culminating with Anima Mundi at Palazzo Albrizzi Capello. I am grateful for these opportunities to share a little bit of who I am with the rest of the world. It is my hope to inspire awareness, appreciation and action to protect and preserve the delicate balance that allows life to continue to flourish within our changing climate, communities and consciousness.

TChadwick 5.27.22

Matriarch

in

Anima Mundi: Consciousness

(click link above for exhibition review)

Venice Experimental Performance Reportage

May 6, 3022

Fort Lauderdale, FL

Amid the flurry of opening day at the long awaited Biennale de Venezia, Tara Chadwick, an Indigenous Belizean/ Canadian based in Broward County, Florida presented a short film honoring her lifelong artistic practice in dance and nature immersion. 

Still image from "Earth • Ecology • Everglades" courtesy Adrienne Chadwick

"Earth • Ecology • Everglades" grew out of a project to provide residents and visitors with a taste of the rhythms, sights, smells and sounds found in the intersection of humans and the natural environment. Funded in part by a grant from the Florida Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Broward Cultural Division, Proyecto Papalotl has engaged communities across and beyond South Florida in interactive presentations since 2014. During the beginning of the COVID pandemic, alternate ways of connecting with community were explored including utilization of different forms of artistic expression: livestreaming, digital recording, audio, film and still  images. The short film is accompanied by a National Geograhic certified intergenerational lesson plan with the same title. More about last month's Venice Experimental Performing Arts Festival can be found at https://www.itsliquid.com/review-experimental-venice-2022.html 

[Image of Earth • Ecology • Everglades on view at Palazzo Bembo courtesy of Its Liquid Group]

Currently Tara Chadwick has two additional works on view in Venice, both of which expand on the theme of exploring the unfurling of our identity, purpose and responsibility as humans living in an Earth  ecosystem that we are rapidly changing. #Matriarch will open at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello on Thursday, May 12 as part of "Anima Mundi CONSCIOUSNESS" and is also on view as a digital lightbox work at Spazio Tana / Tanarte, just across the canal from the Biennial's Arsenale through May 31. Limited edition prints available.

#Matriarch made her debut in Fort Myers last October, then hung as a public art billboard over 27th Avenue during Art Miami Week/ Art Basel from November through January.

Broward County residents and visitors can join Tara Chadwick for an interactive workshop in collaboration with the Miramar Community Garden on Saturday May 14th at 10 am. 

Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture. Funding for this project is provided in part by the Broward County Board of County Commissioners as recommended by the Broward Cultural Council. Background mural courtesy of Valery Amor, Tara Chadwick, Mictla Chadwick, Ihiyo Chadwick, Talyn Skye Bell and Dr. Debbie Danard Wilson. Limited mobility, vision and hearing assistance available, please email wabigun@yahoo.com with detailed request one week prior to event date.

Remembering past work for the future of water and life

Honoring the 14th year since we gathered for the 2008 Spring Equinox Women and Water Leadership Retreat.

Click here to view my reflection of a working weekend at the Mississippi Headwaters

These photos were taken by Mictla Chadwick from the computer camera at the Lake Itasca Biological Field Station. It was an extremely novel tech innovation at the time in 2008 which he identified, implemented and taught us how to use. All other pics by TChadwick.

The prep materials (I still have these files available for anyone who wants to receive a copy of them!):

Mino dibikoong, Ikwaydoog:

 

Gaygayte wayeeba gi gah dagoshinamin owidi wayji jiwan misabe zeebing... michi zeebing...?  Omah gahkawbeekong, oshkibagazeebing ayzhinidawdayg.

 

Thank you for registering for the Indigenous Womens Water Policy and Leadership Retreat!

 

Attached in this email, you will find:

 

• A working agenda & What to bring
• A series of maps to help you get there and find where we all will meet
• A resource list of Water articles and activities that you can find on the internet *attached as footnote
• A list of recommended readings
• An extra copy of the flyer and registration form

 

Please go over these materials as soon as you can.  If any one is interested in receiving any of the recommended readings to look over ahead of time, let me know and I will email them to you.  Otherwise, we will have them available in hard copy and electronic format when we get there (I was hoping to send the whole file but it's 40 MB, too big for most email servers). 

 

It is going to be a wonderful weekend, I am really looking forward to all of us spending time together in focus on what we will do to protect and nurture our common water.

 

Gigawabamin wayeeba!

Bawshkeeng Wabigun.

c. (612) 600-8272

Background work a few years earlier:

Boozhoo, Ninduwaymawgunnidoog,

Omaw ni kwudge itoon duh ozhibeeigay bugee ayzhi anokii duh ganawendawn nibi.  Ni kwudge itoon duh nisidotawn wah ikidoon ni nookomisun meenawah nimishomisun.  Ni migwetchiwayndawn ayzhi midewijig gizawgeein ni mama akeeng. Mi ewe wah ni wi ikidoo noogoom.  Meegwetch bizinduhwee'eg.

 

Bawshkeeng Wabigun,

Wabiguneesun ga onji odawdiseeyawn, Ginew indodaym

Neezho mide indow.

 

 

Giganawendamin Nibi - We must all take care of the Water

 

In the Late Summer of 2005, Nugumoo Maingen (Sharon Day), Wabanew Quay (Dorene Day) and Bawshkeeng Wabigun (Tara Chadwick) attended a manidoons (insect - macroinvertebrate) training at the Leech Lake Water Lab.  Lab director John Purcell provided a brief introduction to macroinvertebrate sample analysis as a screening tool in water quality monitoring and how to adapt this screening method to a multi generational, community based audience.  A cultural training session was held at St. Paul's Como Lake with the help of Bedawsegay (Josephine Mandahmin), lead organizer of the Mother Earth Water Walk.

 

The project is designed to build the knowledge capacity of Native American women to test their own community waters, organize their families and communities to address any toxic or pollution problems, and become active in holding tribal, state and federal governments accountable to the environmental health of Native communities, including ensuring continued access to safe, clean water.

 

Collaborations have been formed with environmental and health organizations and projects such as the Minnesota Native American Council on Tobacco, the Chalchiutlicue Environmental Project, the Women’s Environmental Institute and the Indigenous Environmental Network.  These developing collaborations have provided considerable leverage to help raise awareness of the urgent need to take action in protection of and community ownership of water and water policy (as well as broader environmental causes and impacts) in a variety of distinct and interrelated cultural communities in Minnesota and internationally. 

 

Although organizing our own community and assessing community readiness to take on new (ancestral) levels of commitment and communal responsibility has proven a greater challenge than originally anticipated, the challenge has also revealed new possibilities for creatively overcoming barriers to community participation.  The most important lesson learned is that it is imperative to begin our organizing efforts with the people whom we collectively already know; and to build on this constituency through intentionally forming new relationships with people who have the potential to develop into leaders of the movement to empower Native American women to reclaim their ancestral responsibility as those who will ensure that clean water will be available and accessible for their children and grandchildren seven generations into the future.

--------------------------------------------------------

* list of e-resources

Articles –“Women are the First Environment” Cook, Katsi. 2003. In Indian Country

Today. December 23.http://www.indiancountry.com/content.cfm?id=1072203481

 

“Sense of Place and Place-Based Introductory Geoscience Teaching for

 American Indian and Alaskan Native Undergraduates”

http://semken.asu.edu/semken05_sop.pdf

 

Community-Based Drinking Water Quality Analysis

http://www.engg.ksu.edu/hsrc/international/ALOFinalReport.pdf

 

Highlights from Greg Cajete's Thesis - "Science: a Native American perspective: A

culturally based science education curriculum”

http://www.usask.ca/education/ccstu/guiding_documents/cajete_thesis.htm

 

Indigenous Environmental Network

http://www.ienearth.org/water_campaign.html

http://www.ienearth.org/15th_Indigenous_Environmental_Network_Flyer.pdf

 

Indigenous Peoples Statement to the UN

http://www.ienearth.org/water_ip_kyoto.pdf

 

Indigenous Women’s Mercury Investigation

http://www.nawo.org

 

Learn more about water online at

http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/water/

 

Minnaqua Fishing Curriculum

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/minnaqua/index.html

 

Sacred Lands Reader and more (Sacred Land Film Project)

http://www.sacredland.org/resources.html

 

Test your water knowledge quiz

www.knowh2o.org

 

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. 2002. Fish Consumption and Environmental

Justice: A Report developed from the National Environmental Justice Advisory

Council Meeting of December 3-6, 2001

http://www.epa.gov/oecaerth/resources/publications/ej/nejac/fish-consump-report_1102.pdf

 

U.S. Geological Survey Water Calculator

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sq3.html

 

Water footprint calculator

http://www.waterfootprint.org

-------------------------

Water Policy and Indigenous Women’s Leadership Training 

Reading List

 

Bobo, Lawrence D. and Mia Tuan. 2006. Linking Prejudice and Politics. Prejudice in

Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 23-47.

 

Bullard, Robert D. Anatomy of Environmental Racism. 1993. In Richard Hofrichter (ed.) Toxic

Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, pp. 25-35.

 

Cajete, Gregory. 2000. A Sense of Place. Native Science: Natural Laws if Interdependence.

Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers.

 

Glieck, Peter et al. The Human Right to Water: Two Steps forward, One Step Back. The World’s Water:

            2004-2005 Biennial Report on Freshwater Resources. Washington, DC: Island Press, pp. 204-

            212.

 

Glieck, Peter et al. Substantive Issues Arising in the Implementation of International Covenent on

            Economic, Social, & Cultural Rights. The World’s Water: 2004-2005 Biennial Report on

            Freshwater Resources. Washington, DC: Island Press, pp. 213-226.

 

Goldtooth, Tom B. K.  1995. Indigenous Nations:  Summary of Sovereignty and Its Implications for

Environmental Protection. In Bunyan Bryant (Ed.)  Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies and Solutions. Washington, D.C.:  Island Preess, pp.138-148.

 

Greaves, Thomas. 2001. Contextualizing the Environmental Struggle. In John A. Grim (Ed.), Indigenous

Traditions and Ecology: The Interbeing of Cosmology and Community. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 25-46.

 

Hendee, John C. and Chad P. Dawson. Wilderness Management Planning. In Wilderness

 Management: Stewardship and Protection of Resources and Values (3^rd Ed).

Golden, CO: Fulcrum Publishing, pp. 208-229.

 

LaDuke, Winona.  A Society Based on Conquest Cannot Be Sustained:  Native Peoples and the

            Environmental Crisis.  In Richard Hofrichter (ed.) Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of

            Environmental Justice. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, pp. 99-106.

 

Pielou, E.C. 1998. The Water Cycle. In Fresh water. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, pp. 5-37

 

Randolph, John. 2004. Collaborative Environmental Management and Public

Participation. Environmental Land Use Planning and Management. Washington:

Island Press, pp. 53-74.

 

 Schaeffer, Carol. 2006. Sacred Relations. Grandmothers Counsel the World:

Women Elders Offer Their Vision for Our Planet. Boston, MA: Trumpeter Books, pp. 145-160.

 

Shiva, Vandana. 2002. Water Rights: The State. The Market, The Community. Water Wars:

Privitization,Pollution, & Profit. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, pp. 19-37.

 

Shiva, Vandana. 2002. The Sacred Waters. Water Wars: Privitization, Pollution, &

            Profit. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, pp. 131-146.

Midsummer wandering

As the rainy season cloaks us in the cavern of rhythmic cycles of downpours and sunshowers... we wait cautiously to see what the east winds bring our way and do our best to prepare ourselves for the disciplined routines that must come with the close of the summer break and the opening of the new school year.

As usual the summer flew by in the blink of an eye, filled with memories of joy and sorrow, fear and bravery, optimism and despair... it was like a microcosm of many lives lived in fullness, watching the sun rise and fall across lands familiar and yet unrecognizable.

We listened to each other and to the sounds of the earth conversing with us through her various chorus of voices, of which we are but a fleeting melody. Remembering our past, we set a course of goals for our future, together. As individuals seeking the pursuit of our greatest possible development while simultaneously working to find a way to ensure that all beings are afforded equitable access to this opportunity. Life is not easy but it is in the struggle for balance that we find equilibrium.

Here are a few highlights of summer activities:

Mesoamerican Danza performance and workshop at Broward Schools Equity Conference

Education panel with Seminole Art from the Frontlines Artists at Florida Alliance of Art Educators


Native American Bowling Tournament in Las Vegas, Nevada live broadcast by Gordon Wareham Opening Ceremonies livestream

Mesoamerican Danza performance workshop at Miramar Cultural Center photography by Adrienne Chadwick and Reina Christian.

Pat Bellanger Memorial at Rural Coalition Retreat in Onigum, Minnesota

Reconnecting with family (Reina and Evy, EBB and WM, Julia, Louis, Amy and Katy, prairie, wetlands, woodlands, sage, sweetgrass and that word for bergamot that I can't remember)

In the weeks and months to come, our lives will become overflowing with tasks and obligations, timelines and due dates, homework and classwork and assignments of all kinds... but for now, we are thankful for a few moments of calm, still reflection on the life we've lived and the path we are trodding... we will do our best to keep moving toward that goal of healing while being healed, of figuring it out while helping others figure it out, of learning while doing... we are because we are.

Let's rise, together!!

Road to the Equinox...

On this year's observance of  #InternationalIndigenousWomensDay there is so much to be thankful for while also acknowledging how many concerning items we must consider.

I celebrated the day, like many if not most women across the globe, by rising before dawn, waking my two children, drawing water into the filtration system, ensuring my children are clothed, groomed and fed, and getting them off to school before getting myself to work.

After school I picked them up, dragged them to the local school board meeting so they could voice their opinions on the need for continued district funding for art and science fieldtrips, fed them, helped them with homework, and put them to bed before washing dishes, washing clothes and drawing water again for the next day's cooking and drinking. 

In between I fielded work and personal calls, considered the many house and self care tasks that just don't always get done, planned the weekend #miamirising climate justice art events we will participate in, and spent at least 60 minutes more than I should have on social media catching up with friends, family and whatever real news snippets make it through the mathematical algorithms to reach my eyes.

Now it's to fold and put away the laundry while the little one sleeps and the high schooler finishes off the last of the homework due. Meanwhile I do my best to allay the constant worry of health, bills and wellness, which seems so simple and yet turns out to be so very complicated in this moment in history...

Good, strong thoughts to you, my fellow warriors, as we prepare to set off in the battle to strive toward completing another day of daily life in the war against oblivion....

@bawshkeengwabigun

P.S. After writing and before publishing this post, I did manage to at least boil a pot of cedar tea, so I'm happy to report checking at least one item off on the care list, thanks for the encouragement....  ;)