Art Basel Miami Beach 2024

It's been just over 20 long years since the art scene in South Florida bloomed from winter escapes of the roaring 20s and deco revival of the 80s to the blossoming of contemporary street art here since y2k. 

I remember writing a strongly worded letter to Mr. Horowitz about 10 years ago asking where the presence of Indigenous people appear within the flagship Art Basel Miami Beach enterprise, among well and lesser known Warhols, Baquiats and Calders. The written response was less than vauge, but the receipts over the past decade are undeniably in the bag. We had Edgar Heap of Birds leading one of the next year's Conversation programs. Followed by Jeffrey Gibson who, earlier this year, filled the USA Pavillion at La Biennale with Indigenous art, thought, perspective and music. We've seen Duane Linklater and Nicholas Galanin. Last year we got to see Jaune Quick-to-See Smith as well as Julia Buffalohead in the Meridians Sector. This year we have a return of galleries showing Rose B. Simpson, Wendy Red Star, william cordova, Paula Nicho and Nicholas Galanin.

And within this decade, we have also witnessed a few of the very first major aquisitions of Seminole/ Miccosukee contemporary art by  non-tribal institutions (Smithsonian NMAI: Erican Deitz, 2003 and Danielle Nelson, 2011; Lowe Museum: Erica Deitz, 2014; FSU: Erica Deitz, 2023; UF: Elgin Jumper, 2023; Ringling Museum: Jessica Osceola, 2024 and Brian Zepeda, 2024).

The Future is Indigenous as we all pick up the work of "retracing the steps of our ancestors to see what was left along the trail," (Edward Benton Banaise 1934-2020) and begin to put in motion our plans for a sustainable life style that does not harm the ecosystem in which we exist. 

Beyond Basel, we have the unparalled opportunity to interact with a temporary installation on 32nd and Collins between the sea shore and Faena Hotel just north of the Palms. 

SELETEGA by Nicholas Galanin is a not to be missed opportunity to experience the extraordinary viseral impact of encountering three foreign vessels approach one's home shores. 

It is a visual reflection of a personal historical account that has been retold among our families and communities for over five centuries yet feels as though it is still happening over and over again, even today. 

The impact of the scale and vibrant interactions of the mast and sails with the offshore breezes becons our genetic memories to recall the horrors of legallized genocide while beseeching us to wake up from the nightmare and take action to construct our plans and begin building a new day of peace, prosperity and respectful co-existance on our shared Mother the Earth. 

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)

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.

Golden Hour

Local artist joins global day of action against climate change.

Tired of the inaction, global arts initiative Micro Galleries held their second global day of creative action in response to one of the biggest threats of our generation. Occurring on to coincide with the United Nations Climate Change conference (COP26) in Glasgow this project will bring together artists from all over the world to tackle climate inaction head on.

The idea was born after Micro Galleries Artistic Director, Kat Roma Greer spent time researching in The Arctic and at Al Gore’s Climate Reality Leadership Corps in late 2018. Kat saw a need for more accessible information about how climate disruption and inaction was impacting the world's most vulnerable people. When Kat put the call out for artists to join her, Tara Chadwick answered the call.

This month and next, the effect of seasonal "king tides" is creating a climate disaster in the form of visible flooding and invisible salt water intrusion into our soil and water table along the banks of this river which have been used for thousands of years by humans seeking to live a good, healthy life. This river has been deemed unusable for human contact several times over the past three to five years due to chronic overdevelopment and problematic decision making on the part of those responsible for ensuring safe and effective infrastructure. We must, as citizens of Mother earth, intervene now to ensure that the trajectory of our species is altered to realign with the geometry of nature. – Tara Chadwick.

Tara Chadwick and Micro Galleries see the need for more accessible information about how climate disruption and inaction is impacting all of us, and art is a great way to do this. An opinion supported by Bill McKibben, best known as the leading American environmentalist’s and ‘world’s best green journalist’. When Bill heard about this global day of art action in 2019, he threw his support behind it stating, ‘environmentalists are good at bar graphs and statistical tables.. but that’s only half of the human brain. We also need art and music to reach our more visceral core. That’s why this initiative from Micro Galleries is so vital.’

Tara Chadwick’s works streamed live over 24 hours, and will be included in an online exhibition and catalogue at www.microgalleries.org

To find out how you can support this day of action and watch the art unfold, head to https://microgalleries.org/program

End

 

About The Artist

Tara is an Indigenous woman, a member of the African Diaspora, a grandchild of the Maya and Mesoamerican People of Belize, Mexico and Central America and of the original people of the land we now know as Western Europe. It is her vision that we can all return to a life of harmony with the cycles of nature.

You can see Tara’s latest work at The Missing Paart in Wynwood during Art Miami Week and in “Neo.Rev,” a city wide public art exhibition by Save Art Space from Nov. 22 to Dec. 18. Later this winter, Tara will be launching “Proyecto Papalotl,” engaging Golden Age Adults in the art of Mesoamerican Danza, made possible with support from the Broward County Cultural Division and sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture.

Updates and details at taraalomachadwick.blogspot.com or www.instagram.com/wabigun.

 

About Micro Galleries

Micro Galleries is a free, independent global arts initiative that uses art as a vehicle to create positive change. We do this through creative interventions in public spaces, workshops, art tours, symposiums, think tanks, and residencies.

www.microgalleries.org

www.facebook.com/microgalleries

www.instagram.com/microgalleries

 

Media contact details

Local:                   Tara Chadwick                 wabigun@yahoo.com

Global:                 Claudia Lee                       media@microgalleries.org

###

Golden hour

Tara Chadwick

New River, Fort Lauderdale, Florida

 

This month and next, the effect of seasonal "king tides" is creating a climate disaster in the form of visible flooding and invisible salt water intrusion into our soil and water table along the banks of this river which have been used for thousands of years by humans seeking to live a good, healthy life. And this river has been deemed unusable for human contact several times over the past three to five years due to chronic overdevelopment and problematic decision making on the part of those responsible for ensuring safe and effective infrastructure. We must, as citizens of Mother earth, intervene now to ensure that the trajectory of our species is altered to realign with the geometry of nature.

“Golden Hour” seeks to support, stimulate and encourage action oriented solutions to the current climactic conditions including public awareness, personal responsibility and biological accountability. We put ourselves in to this mess. By examining what we do, individually, collectively and globally, we can get ourselves back on track with the original instructions all human beings received at the beginning of their time on earth. This message will be shared with the community on the historic banks of the New River in a public participative, interactive installation incorporating the interconnectedness of sound, movement, land, water, people and the concept of the golden repair on a local and global climate scale.

Multiple forms of art including sound, movement and visuals are used in collaboration with citizen science based sea level rise research, action and solutions.

We have a vast capacity to effect change especially due to our large proportion of global tourism. By creating this model of interactive public art, visitors and residents will be inspired to engage in work that questions the status quo and access new avenues of creative problems solving in areas of climate resilience, climate policy and climate change mitigation.

As I reflect on the various actions taking place today, and those we engaged in ourselves, it dawns on me that humans have a great capacity to make giant leaps in conscience and practice. At one time in our history, we learned how to harvest the power of the sun in an element we now call fire. At another time in our history, we learned how to coax a grass into a seed that now feeds the world! At this time, our challenge is much simpler and doable: restore our technology and daily living to practices that do not harm the earth.

 

November 6^th, 2021

9:00 AM to 7:00 PM

 

The Beginning

FIU Sea Level Rise Solutions Day – Engaged in Citizen Science with the Institute of Environment at a location determined by the FIU research team to monitor urban flooding at King Tides

Upon arrival at 9:30 am on Saturday, November 6, 2021

 

The level of street flooding above storm drain at 10 am on Saturday, November 6, 2021

         

Refractometer reading indicates salinity is 10% in sample 1 from 10 am

 

 

Second samples were taken at the appointed time of 10:30 am on Saturday, November 6, 2021

Street flooding rose ¾ inch in 30 minutes.

One golden marine life was observed struggling to survive but still alive sending ripples of urgency

  

Salinity of the standing water above the storm drain increased by 2% in 30 minutes.

The photo on the right was taken by group member Ihiyo Chadwick (age 10).

By the time we left at 11 am the street flooding was up to four inches and still rising with an observed increase in oil mixed into the flood water.

 

The elevation of the surface of the sea water is well above the level of the roadway.

 

A little after 11 am, we packed up and drove the water samples to the FIU Campus at Oleta River and Biscayne Bay where they were refrigerated to preserve the viability for testing protocols. We are awaiting the lab results. On the way back, we stopped to observe a few other local residents engaged in their own creative contributions to the global day for climate repair

 

 

The Middle

The Bees’ tree with Golden Skirt Bridge

Me and Tree

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWFZhVbFOrS/

Moss (video)

Golden Orb Weaver

https://www.instagram.com/p/CWFZeqjvEwi/

Butterfly (video)

Concha

Canoeing

Then we returned to the New River to complete our documentation of the Golden Hour

https://www.instagram.com/p/CV_nZ5aJv7Q/

Water (video)

 

The End

Water and Golden Bridge

Restoration is a collaborative venture!

Seminole Art Takes Center Stage

Seminole Art Takes Center Stage 

repost from The Seminole Tribune

FORT LAUDERDALE – The public will get a chance to see the work of more than two dozen Seminole artists in November.

In recognition of Native American Heritage Month, History Fort Lauderdale will host “A Return to Self: The Art of Healing,” which features works by the tribe’s most prominent artists. The exhibit will open Nov. 21 and run through Jan. 9, 2022.

“This is especially relevant now as we navigate new ways to connect with and care for loved ones during the pandemic and learn from Native American artists who have been nurturing themselves and this land for hundreds of years,” said Patricia Zeiler, executive director of History Fort Lauderdale. “We are grateful to the Seminole Tribe of Florida for its continued support of History Fort Lauderdale during Native American Heritage Month and beyond.”

Opening day will feature a VIP tour and a meet-and-greet with artists.

Curated by Tara Chadwick and Tia Blais-Billie, “A Return to Self: The Art of Healing” will showcase a variety of contemporary and traditional media including oils, acrylics, fiber, glass, metals, mixed media and digital art from 25 Seminole artists spanning five generations. The artists are Durante Blais-Billie, Tia Blais-Billie, Wilson Bowers, Carla Cypress, Nicholas DiCarlo, Erica Dietz, Ruby Dietz, Donna Frank, Stephanie Hall, Eden Jumper, Elgin Jumper, Danielle Nelson, Alyssa Osceola, Jackie Osceola, Jacob Osceola, Jessica Osceola, the late Jimmy Osceola, Leroy Osceola, Madeline Osceola, Iretta Tiger, Daniel Tommie, Samuel Tommie, Gordon Oliver Wareham, Brian Zepeda and Corinne Zepeda.

Complimentary admission is available for Art Basel First Choice or Preview cardholders. Guests can participate in the exhibit’s premiere in-person or online. History Fort Lauderdale admission is $15 for adults, $12 for seniors and $7 for students (through age 22 with a valid student ID). Admission is free for members, military and children ages six and under. Tickets are available online.

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!!