Ryan Dennison is a Diné transdisciplinary artist from Tohatchi, NM. His work has been featured in both solo and collaboration exhibitions across Diné Nation and U.S. Sicksicksick Distro (Albuquerque, NM), “All My Relations” Exhibition (Minneapolis, NM), “Visions into Infinite Archives” Exhibition (San Francisco, CA), Deep White Sound (Portland, OR), and “Future Now / Futura Ahora” (New York City, NY). Dennison’s work defuses critical engaged consciousness and liberation technologies through indigenous research, planning, design, education and healing. He comes from a background of experiential, pastoral and traditional ecological knowledge, which constructs a Diné epistemological framework and pedagogical orientation of traditional/western knowledge.Shapeshifting through various mediums he exercises the transposition of past and present to share a social and political soundscape. to vision our future environment, acknowledging the interconnectedness of land, culture and community. His practice involves both visual art and sound—engaging in performances that utilize Diné traditional tools with self taught media such as contact mics, synthesizers, handmade costumes, and projections.He currently works and lives in Gallup, NM as an educator with indigenous communities actively maintaining, renewing and revitalizing traditional knowledge linking, food, culture, health and the environment.

In this episode Broken Boxes gets into conversation with writer and director Sterlin Harjo. We hear about Sterlin's journey to becoming a filmmaker and he shares memories of growing up in rural Oklahoma as 'that weird artist kid'. Sterlin talks about being a founding member of renown Native comedy group the 1491s and reflects on the beginning project that catapulted the group to what it is today. Sterlin also talks about Standing Rock as an Indigenous led global movement and we get his perspective regarding the film works that have come since. Sterlin also offers his insight for existing in a world consumed by social media and offers advice on how to approach creating film work in today's accessible media platforms.Sterlin Harjo belongs to the Seminole and Creek Nations, and is a native of Holdenville, Oklahoma. Interested from an early age in visual art and film, Harjo studied painting at the University of Oklahoma before writing his first feature-length script. Since then Harjo was a participant in the Sundance Institute’s Feature Film Program. In 2004, Sundance Institute selected Harjo to receive an Annenberg Fellowship, which provided extended support over a two-year period to facilitate the creation of his feature project. In 2006 Harjo was in the inaugural class of United States Artists award recipients. He was also the youngest recipient.Sterlin Harjo completed a year of development on his feature film script FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND through the Sundance Institute’s Filmmaker Labs where he worked under the guidance of industry veterans such as Robert Redford, Stanley Tucci, Joan Tewkesbury, Susan Shilliday, Frank Pierson, Walter Mosley, and Antonia Bird. Sterlin’s project was one of 12 projects chosen from a pool of almost 2,500 based on the uniqueness of his voice, the originality of his story and the promise of this feature film offering something poignant to American cinema.Harjo’s short film GOOD NIGHT IRENE premiered at the Sundance Film Festival 05 and has went on to play festivals around the world. The short film has garnered Harjo awards including Special Jury Recognition at the Aspen Shorts Festival and Best Oklahoma Film at the Dead Center film festival in Oklahoma City.In 2007 Harjo’s first feature film, FOUR SHEETS TO THE WIND, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The film garnered warm responses from both audience’s and critics. Tamara Podemski won a Special Jury Prize for outstanding performance for her role in the film as Miri Smallhill. Podemski was also nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for her performance.Harjo’s film BARKING WATER had a successful premiere at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, and it screened as a part of the highly acclaimed New Directors/New Film series in New York City. Barking Water was the only American film that played in the Venice Days section of the 2009 Venice Film Festival.Harjo’s first documentary THIS MAY BE THE LAST TIME premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival.Harjo’s film Mekko premiered at The Los Angeles Film Festival in 2015. Mekko also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Stockholm International Film Festival. It won best film at the ImagineNative Film Festival in Toronto.Harjo is a founding member of the all Native comedy group the 1491s.

JESS X SNOW is a queer Asian-American artist, filmmaker and poet. After the Cultural Revolution, her parents immigrated from Nanchang, China to Canada, which she shortly left at the age of 7 to migrate to the US with her mother. After the splitting of her parents, she developed a stutter which she overcame through her discovery of art, poetry and film.

The Art Of Indigenous Resistance: Inspiring the protection of Mother Earth is an exhibition featuring the work of leading artists and activist collectives from across the globe whose work creates awareness in the social, economic, environmental and political issues that impact the health and resilience of Indigenous people. Through art and healing self-expression, the exhibition seeks to spark a dialogue on humanity’s interconnectedness with Mother Earth and support systematic change by highlighting Indigenous practices and community powered solutions. This exhibition honors the vanguards of environmental justice and promotes solidarity with Indigenous people in the fight to save our sacred planet.

riginally from the Navajo Nation, Raven Chacon is a composer of chamber music, a performer of experimental noise music, and an installation artist. He performs regularly as a solo artist as well as with numerous ensembles in the Southwest and beyond. He is also a member of the Indigenous art collective Postcommodity, with who he recently premiered the 2-mile long land art/border intervention, Repellent Fence. Just one week after the election results in the United States, I had the honor to sit down with composer and artist Raven Chacon and talk about his practice. In this episode Raven speaks about the origins of his work and how he came to experience making sound. We hear about his involvement with Postcommodity, an interdisciplinary arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, and Kade L. Twist and we also hear about his work teaching youth through the Native American Composer Apprentice Project. Raven shares his varying experiences in creating chamber music and experimental noise and reflects on the ‘dues' that must be paid by artists along the way. He also addresses ideas around identity and the Indigenous artist, what the role of the artist is, and the opportunity the artist has to remain mysterious. Raven reminds us to think critically and to take time to seek the truth.

The Peñasco Theatre is a crucial community and performance space located in Northern New Mexico. Last year Broken Boxes was invited to host a podcast workshop with young people from throughout the area who participated in an annual week-long summer arts intensive. This episode is from the podcast workshop themed 'The Alternative Archive' and presents a collection of stories, poems, teen led interviews, and reflections. This podcast episode also features introduction information about the space and teen camp and self guided interviews by and between artists/educators Freyr A. Marie and India Davis who were project leaders for the intensive. Special thanks to Rebekah Tarin, Alessandra Ogren and the entire Peñasco Theatre Collective for all the important work you continue to do!

A message from Freyr A Marie: G/^/L/^/I/^/T/^/C/^/H/---*_*---/P/^/R/^/0/^/F/^/I/^/L/^/E I'm no authority:::: but making things for me is a practice of doing and being*** My critical minds lives there/^/my politics/^/mybody/^/my questions/^/my love/^/my creativity/^/myself in change/^/my ability to sooth myself--*_*--> that Xspirit that cannot be pinned down with-*_*--> that quality of resistance that is joy and peering through cracks/^//^/-*_*---> that is turmoil and violence:::::/bashback/graceback/talkback/makeback/rageback/loveback/::::::::::::::There's grace/^/grit/^/fight/^/imagination/^/preservation of::::I am not just alone/^/ my doing/^/ art/^/creativity/^/craft/^/ what ever-> the name/^/is connected to others /^/a non linear/^/ lineage of people/^/ related to me by blood or by another intersection of thinking-*_*->being-->place-*_*->displacement--->practice or identity/^/that impact my sense of these things/^/whether is shows up overtly in what i make or doesn't-*_*-> whether it is in celebration of a quality-*_*->a way of doing/a way of relating -*_*->or in resistance to/^/ or both/^/neither at once:::: it shows up::::in the code::::it is intentional/^/or free/^/or random::: i suppose theres an ethic in there::: how i understand those relationships and interpret them in my practices of doing and making-*_*--> or don’t---*_*-->Its tactile/^/ it is need/^/ is safety/^/ its risk/^/ it is technology/^/needle/^/thread/^/but mostly it is a kind of doing that helps me-*_*--> hold a space--->wake up and be in the world with others/^/ and communitcate--*_*->and thats certainly not all of it/^/only so much you can say in the code/^/in the logic/^/::::::glitching out loud::::::::never enough/^/always too much:///:///:///incare/^/in/dignity//////

For the past year, the Dakota Access Pipeline (ETP) in collaboration with the North Dakota State police force have been trampling upon the constitutional, human, and civil rights of his people. In this episode Cannupa shares through childhood memory, what Standing Rock means to him as a place where he simply goes home to. He also shares the story behind the namesake Standing Rock and the complexity of all Indigenous story which is overlooked in our popular culture. Cannupa speaks about the organic nature of the water protector camps, the evolution of the movement and the relationship of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe to this now global movement. Cannupa also tells us about his experience as artist and water protector, participating in what ways he is able to create collaboration and empowerment for his people through artwork and actions such as the mirror shield project.

Kim Smith is a Todích'íí'nii (Bitterwater clan) woman from St Michaels Arizona. As a woman of a water clan she holds her responsibilities to water dear and has dedicated her life to protecting water & her homelands from resource extraction. For the past 10 years her organizing efforts include art activism, raising awareness about resource extraction on the Diné Nation, water rights, food sovereignty, permaculture & indigenous empowerment in efforts to uphold many inherit responsibilities. As a young Diné woman looking at personal and political choices she makes efforts according to her cultural teachings and values; thinking and behaving in a way that is consistent to the teachings of ancestors and with the laws of nature. In an effort to restore balance to the land and community. Kim is also a board member for Honor the Earth & Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment ( Diné CARE) two pioneer indigenous environmental organizations. Kim is also the curator for a national traveling exhibition called, "The Art of Indigenous Resistance".

"On December 5th, 2016 the Army Corps of Engineers has announced that they will begin evicting water protectors at Standing Rock from the Oceti Sakowin Camp. What they failed to acknowledge is that this movement is filled with passion, dedication, prayer, love, and a refusal to give up on what we all know to be right, and to be true. If you've been thinking about coming, but have hesitated, come and protect clean water. Stand with us and for mother earth. There is strength in numbers, there is strength in prayer and community, there is strength in marching with your fists open and head held high. The hearts of water protectors are the strongest and most powerful that I've ever known and it is an honor to be able to stand with them--join us." -Courtney Cronis Material rebroadcast here is from the Facebook pages: Urban Native Era Prolific the Rapper Christi Belcourt Isaac Murdoch James Uqualla’ Lakota People's Law Project Emergency press conference with Tribal Chairman Dave Archambault II This rebroadcasting is an attempt to allow this information to reach further than the one media forum of Facebook, to share this story in the way the water protectors creating these live broadcasts have asked us all to. To get the message out into the world, and break media blackout. We are the media. We are all connected. Not one single person can live without water, we are Standing Rock!