TONGVALAND / LOS ANGELES — Opening on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, October 11, 2021 and closing November 11, 2021 in Native American Heritage Month, Transformative Arts will host The Chapter House for a REZidency at their location on Tongvaland, or Downtown Los Angeles. This collaboration marks The Chapter House’s first in-person arts events, including musical performances, workshops and demos, artist talks and panels, and a raffle. This residency will celebrate the community of Indigenous Peoples, allies, and accomplices The Chapter House has cultivated through online programming over the past year in Transformative Arts’ physical space. This is the first step for The Chapter House towards opening a permanent brick and mortar space in Tongvaland/Los Angeles. 

The Chapter House is an Indigenous arts space that celebrates individual and shared Indigenous cultures, and explores the complexities of the 21st Century Indigenous experience. Over the past year, The Chapter House’s online programming has included panel and community discussions, the exhibition but when you come from water, concerts, artist lectures, poetry readings, and community craft nights and workshops. 

Founded by curator jill moniz, Transformative Arts is both an arts nonprofit and a physical space intended to nurture participation in the arts and to develop Visual Literacy that contributes to sustainable communities worldwide. With a focus on freedom, equity, accessibility and diasporic narratives, Transformative Arts nurtures local arts projects that make art accessible through collectivity and collaboration, by and for LA communities.

Through the month-long exhibition and in-person and online programming, The Chapter House will provide a space for Indigenous artists to showcase work, to include and educate non-Indigenous people on Indigenous art, issues, and movements, and to welcome those who may not normally experience white cube arts spaces. 

Please join us October 11th from 12 pm - 5 pm PDT for some amazing art by Indigenous artists, an opening prayer and land acknowledgment, an introduction to The Chapter House and Transformative Arts, a Métis Weaving Workshop (all supplies provided!), a BYOP (Bring Your Own Project—bring something you’re working on for an art making circle, we’ll also have some supplies present) Session, a concert by Gabe Colhoff from 1876, Ch’il Gohwéhí (Navajo tea) and piccadillies! Please register ahead of time below and feel free to choose one or both sets of events!

Admission is always free and all are welcome. All in-person events will follow COVID safety guidelines, including mandatory masking, physical distancing, and proof of vaccination and/or negative COVID test within the last two days. These precautions are to ensure the safety and health of all staff and visitors.

Sharing from EventBrite:

Join us for our first Virtual Art-Talk! Learn more about how Kinngait textile printing impacted contemporary Inuit fashion design.

About this Art-Talk

For our first Virtual Art-Talk, Textile Museum of Canada Curator Alexandria Holm will speak about contemporary Inuit fashion designers featured in her exhibition Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios. These include Martha Kyak of InukChic, Nooks Lindell of Hinaani Design, and Tarralik Duffy of Ugly Fish. The exhibition explores a little-known story of a group of Inuit artists and printmakers who produced a collection of graphic textiles in Kinngait, Nunavut, during the 1950's and 60's -- a traumatic period during which colonial efforts disrupted traditional language and relationships to the Land. Alexandria will trace the evolution and impact of the Kinngait textile printing initiative on Inuit graphic arts and entrepreneurialism to become a story about Inuit cultural survival and celebration in the 21st century.

About Alexandria Holm

Alexandria Holm is a Toronto based art historian and the Curatorial Project Coordinator of Printed Textiles from Kinngait Studios, an exhibition at the Textile Museum of Canada.

Alexandria received her MA in Art History and diploma in Curatorial Studies in Visual Culture from York University, and her BA in Art History from McGill University. She has nine years of broad experience in both public and private art businesses, including museums, commercial art galleries and artist-run centers in Toronto, ON, Hamilton, ON and Montréal, QC.

Finger weaving is a traditional art form used to create versatile woven pieces for voyaging / travelling and wear by First Nations communities and peoples in Canada.

Please join The Chapter House for an intro to Métis (Michif) finger weaving with S.A. Lawrence-Welch! Learn to make a basic pattern along with a little history and some really excellent joke telling! Whether you’re a beginner, an expert, or just curious about a new art form, this session will be welcoming and inclusive to all.

Come share (virtual) space, community and culture with us!

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For the session you will need:
- 3 skeins or balls of yarn, different colours 🧶

- Yarn.com

- Deal Genius

- Etsy (sometimes more expensive, but lots of variety!)

- A wooden dowel, chopstick or pencil⁠ ✏️ 🥢

- Tape⁠

- Scissors✂️

Sharing from Yale University Art Gallery —

What would the world look like if, as humans, we thought of ourselves as companion species? Can acts of creative collaboration help heal broken bonds with the environment and with each other? Cannupa Hanska Luger (Manda, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota) and Marie Watt (Seneca), M.F.A. 1996, invite the public to consider such questions while contributing to the physical manifestation of a large-scale sculptural installation.

In conjunction with the Gallery’s exhibition Place, Nations, Generations, Beings: 200 Years of Indigenous North American Art and in preparation for the collaborative project Each/Other at the Denver Art Museum, artists Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marie Watt host a virtual sewing circle. Gathering together on Zoom, the artists will lead us in a shared practice of making a monumental artwork and reflecting on the Gallery’s exhibition, in which artwork by both Luger and Watt are featured.

No sewing experience is necessary and all ages are encouraged to participate. Participants are invited to bring their own materials: a bandana or a piece of fabric roughly 22 inches square, needle, and thread; embroidery hoop is optional. Email yuagprograms@yale.edu with any questions or if you are in need of materials. More information will follow registration.

Closed captions will be available in English. Generously sponsored by the Martin A. Ryerson Lectureship Fund.

Though space is limited at the virtual sewing circle, all are welcome to embroider a message onto a bandana or piece of fabric, which artists Luger and Watt will incorporate into a forthcoming large-scale sculpture for the Each/Other exhibition at the Denver Art Museum (https://www.denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/each-other). 

Instructions:
1. Acquire a bandana or a piece of repurposed fabric roughly 22 inches square.
2. Fold bandana/fabric corner to corner to create a triangle.
3. Embroider/stitch text, imagery, or any other visual sentiment onto a corner portion of the fabric.
4. Embroidered fabric should be mailed to the artists at this address by January 25, 2021:
Camp Colton
c/o Each/Other
30088 S Camp Colton Drive
Colton, OR 97017

Learn more about Cannupa Hanska Luger at https://www.cannupahanska.com and Marie Watt at https://www.mariewattstudio.com. Find information about the exhibition Place, Nations, Generations, Beings at https://artgallery.yale.edu/exhibitions/place-nations-generations-beings.

Registration is required and space is limited. To register, visit https://bit.ly/37Bfoge.