PARIS+ par Art Basel

You know the name. 

Art Basel. The biggest Art Fair in the world with editions in Basel, Hong Kong, Miami and now adding staff to prepare for a new show in Paris!

Check out today's call for qualifications:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Cc5uoJALZXn/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y= 

#MayDay in #Venezia

Proyecto Papalotl Presents:

Matriarch 

by

Tara A. Chadwick

Artist Statement

As we attempt to balance our attention equally on past, present and future, an inner voice of reason and nature coaxes us to glide with the rhythms of the universe; to practice kindness to ourselves and by extension, each other’s selves; to take note of things we do to enact change within and without.

The emergence of a new self from a chrysalis of unfathomable transformation models a path to an ideal not yet imagined. A destination where infinity exists in cycles powered by love, for that is the true role of a matriarch: hold fast to the past and future and ensure the present generation is guided and grounded in traditions of empathy.

In this moment we are all children of the matriarch, responsible and beholden to ensure her wellbeing and in doing so, also our own. Journeying together on the winds of time to remember and repair what we’ve forgotten; preparing a path to wellbeing, accountability and justice.

Proyecto Papalotl uses the art of dance to heighten public awareness of the role all humans play in our ecosystem by infusing South Florida with opportunities for residents and visitors of all ages to engage in high quality, transformative experiences in traditional Mesoamerican danza. This project is sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Arts and Culture and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture (Section 286.25, Florida Statutes).

Special thanks to Reina Christian and Family for these images of the work on view at Tanarte / Spazio Tana!

Earth Day in #Venice2022

Like many, the pandemic propelled my prioritization of food, food access and food systems as we, like many families worked through the uncertainties of supply, demand and the sudden need to produce 3-6 nutritious meals per day. I have always had a kitchen garden of sorts, and up until three years ago, a variety of nearby communal spaces for growing and harvesting. Enter Fort Lauderdale. When I moved to Home Beautiful Park, it was partly due to the vast urban farm scattered throughout the five Northwest Gardens rental properties, all closed due to COVID. So, over the past two and half years, the two foot balcony garden has grown into the Two Foot Balcony farm, now boasting a 20+ square foot growing space with three levels and an active compost for clippings and tea bags. I went to visit my former neighbor, Miramar Community Garden last Monday, just to see what was on tap for Earth Day. In return for my visit I was gifted with so many surprises and updates, including a new crop in Prince peaches, Sastuma cherries (which I am certain I found because Ms. Beverly said to look for them) and a fancy little compost bin with red worms, which I barely ever see here in our tropical marine soils!! It inspired me to try to up my apartment balcony compost game, so I'm currently trying out an experiment in renerative soil building using all that paper we tend to go through while fulfilling our fiscal responsibilities at this time of year. The cranberry beans seem to like it. I kept it away from the smaller seed babies though, since I know most printing companies show up on the EPA enviromapper for toxic releases and I'm not sure or whether the plants will absorb it. So, there's your community compost collage and report from here on the Two Foot Balcony Farm in Sunny Fort Laurderdale.

Join me in celebrating the world premiere of my pandemic made short film "Earth • Ecology • Everglades" tomorrow at Palazzo Bembo in San Marco, Venice, Italy 🇮🇹 5 - 8 pm. 

#EarthDayinVenice2022

https://www.facebook.com/260258137431296/posts/3547789932011417/ 

Reflection on Summer Two Decades past

Written by Bawshkeeng Wabigun

August 16, 2002

 

It was a summer of science, plants and bugs!  The Three Fires Society Youth Language program embarked on the banks of Ottertail Lake this year, to spend the summer learning language and environmental knowledge, Anishinabe style!  Our first order of business was to get ourselves to the river mouth (zagidow) using our own ingenuity, strength and determination… we had to paddle out over the lake and up the river in canoes.  Some of us had never even been in a canoe before!  But, with the encouragement and guidance of our Elders and teachers (who came to check up on us periodically in their motor boats to make sure we were still floating…) we made it to the cabin!  We were calm, happy and tired!  We still had to pitch our tents, set up camp, cook, haul water and do dishes, all before sundown!

 

Our month-long stay started out with a ceremony on the first morning after our arrival.  Grandma Nancy spoke for us, for our safe arrival, and the work that we would be undertaking here at the site of the old village.  We also gave thanks for the things we would need out there… food, water, berries, and we asked that we might not be bothered too much by things that are also doing their work… bees, thunders, snakes…  It was a good introduction, not only to the language, but also to the land and the scientific processes that go on – cycles of nature, equal and opposite forces, and the natural law of equal exchange.  We were reminded that whenever we cross the water, or pick an item from the earth… we must remember to put our tobacco there first.  

 

Each day thereafter was spent working and learning.  We learned how to make a container to hold berries as we picked them (the strawberries were just ripening as we arrived), we gathered and prepared birch bark (wiigwaas), basswood (wiigoob) and spruce roots (miinaeg odabiig) for making baskets (wiigwaasi makakoonsag) and drinking/ eating vessels (onaaganensag).  We set fish nets (asab), built a smoking rack (gapskizigun), made homemade mosquito coils (bigajiisag), cooked wild rice (jibaakwe manoomin) and bannock (baakwezhigunikewin) and we went on paddling trips to pay our respects to some of the cultural sites in the area.  The only disappointing part of our stay was that we didn’t get to smoke any berries or fish, because while we were there, an outdoor burning ban was in effect, and the MNR threatened to water bomb us if we dared to try out our new smoking rack!  (Better luck next year, perhaps.)

 

One of the highlights for the younger members of our crew was the great volleyball playoff, which took place in Redgut a few days before the North American Indigenous Games.  Community members from Nickikonseminikaaning invited the Science Summer Camp crew to show off their skills in sports and to share some of what we had been doing and learning out at Ottertail.  The game was a great success, and in the end (after Redgut pounced us twice) we joined teams, played together, and planned a rematch!  It was important for us to be able to visit the community and get to know some of the community members.   

 

When it came time for us to pack up and leave Ottertail… we did not want to go!  We’d gotten used to going to bed early, hearing the birds, smoking out the mosquitos, and eating fresh fish in the morning.  We liked the peace and quiet.  We had become familiar with the land around the cabin, the trails through the bush, and the beautiful smooth rock that emerges out of the water to form hilly shores.  We’d learned so much, how to survive in the wilderness, in the heat or in the snow.  We’d become proud paddlers, unafraid of wind or rain or even waves.  We even learned to sail!

 

Our time out at Ottertail is an experience, a string of learning and teachings that we will each carry and treasure throughout our lives.  As we continue to learn, and grow we will integrate our new experience and knowledge in a way that we can pass on to others.  As a group, we will remember all that we were taught.  And when the time comes, we will be able to use that knowledge, and pass it on to the generations that follow.

 

---

 

After our departure from Ottertail, we journeyed to Leech Lake to take part in the youth gathering, teaching and the Great Anishinabe Canoe Race.  Two of our crew took second place in the two-day event.  Another one of our crew members had to leave us for a few days to attend the North American Indigenous Games, where he battled to bronze victory with team Wisconsin in the Juvenile Boys Basketball finals.

 

We have already put some of our training to the test helping other Anishinaabe youth during the Seven Generations Survivor Camp held at the Nanicost Grounds August 12 – 15.  Young people (ages 10-15) from throughout the local area came together in teams to see who could withstand four days of intense teaching, learning and having fun… and the Science Camp crew made sure they did!  

 

Many esteemed elders came to share their insights, skills and knowledge.  Teams entered from Rainy River First Nations, Northwest Bay, Stanjikoming, TLC, and the Metis Federation, as well as youth from Couchiching, Fort Frances and Redgut, just to name a few!  

 

In the end, all of our teams were survivors.  Each team received a ribbon for every challenge activity they successfully completed.  Perhaps you can still see a team flag displayed somewhere in your community… but beware! It may be covered with the evidence of four days of hard work, learning and having fun!

That's us: The Die Hard Crew on a weekend visit to the Duluth Aquarium near the end of our adventure. 

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!