Jeffrey Gibson
REDCAT, the CalArts School of Art, and IndigenousArts@CalArts are pleased to welcome the editors, book designer, and artist contributors of the landmark anthology, An Indigenous Present, for an evening of conversation and celebration. Our Own Work, Our Own Audiences celebrates the release of An Indigenous Present (published by BIG NDN Press/DelMonico Books) which surveys an intergenerational field of Indigenous North American contemporary artists, musicians, filmmakers, choreographers, architects, writers, photographers, and designers whose work upends the conventions of the mainstream art world and non-Native publics by making work that embodies Indigenous ways of being and knowing.
Conceived by Jeffrey Gibson, a renowned artist and educator of Mississippi Choctaw and Cherokee descent, An Indigenous Present demonstrates what uncompromising, self-determined works of Indigenous expression can be. Grounded in community and committed to a diverse array of expression, the publication points to ways of making that Dakota scholar Phillip Deloria suggests symbolize “more than survival, more than resistance” but insist on a “continuity of wit, irony, fearlessness, endurance and future-forward possibility.”
This event will feature the co-editors Jeffrey Gibson and Jenelle Porter, book designer Sébastien Aubin, and contributors Elisa Harkins and Caroline Monnet. Spokane scholar and artist, Chad S. Hamill/ čnaq’ymi, Director of Indigenous Arts at CalArts, will lead a conversation exploring key themes from the book: humor, sound, land as material, and the body.
In his introduction to the book, Gibson notes this publication is “a gesture of the present, to the present, as a present.” It not only highlights an increasingly visible and expanding field of Indigenous creative practice, it cultivates an Indigenous futurity that is intergenerational, diverse and committed to self-representation and sovereignty.
Live stream available Friday, November 17th, 7:30 PM PT