We’re welcoming Forge Project executive director and chief curator Candice Hopkins (Tlingit) and artist and Ma’s House founder Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock) for an intimate conversation on new New York–based initiatives focusing on Indigenous arts and culture, making space for Native kinship, and re-building community in the region.
Ma’s House Studio is a not-for-profit BIPOC-focused communal artist residency program in a family home originally built in the 1960s on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation on Long Island. Launched in 2020, Ma’s House holds an art studio, library, and hosts an array of art and history-based programs for tribal members and the broader local community.
Launched in 2021, Forge Project serves the social and cultural landscape of shared communities through a funded fellowship program for Indigenous culture workers, including those working in food and land justice, law and decolonial governance, and art. Forge hosts Native-led public education and events, a lending art collection focused on contemporary art by Indigenous artists, and a teaching farm and related programs developed in partnership with @skyhighfarmhudsonvalley.
Throughout the month of October, Rough Draft will also host a table of books for purchase on tribal histories, culture, resistance, and sovereignty selected by staff at Forge Project and Ma’s House.
Space is limited. Reservations are not required to attend this conversation, although staff at Rough Draft, Forge Project, and Ma’s House ask that attendees use common sense when considering the health and safety of visitors. If you are feeling ill or exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, please stay home.
About Candice Hopkins
Candice Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Red Hook, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explores the intersections of history, contemporary art, and indigeneity. She worked as senior curator for the 2019 and 2022 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art and was part of the curatorial team for the Canadian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma. She is co-curator of notable exhibitions including Art for New Understanding: Native Voices 1950s to Now; the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada; documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany; Sakahàn: International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada and Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years in Winnipeg, MB. Her essays include “The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier,” for the documenta 14 Reader, “Outlawed Social Life” for South as a State of Mind, and “The Appropriation Debates (or The Gallows of History)," for New Museum/MIT Press. In 2021 she was a recipient of the inaugural Noah Davis Prize, along with Thomas Lax and Jamillah James.
About Forge Project
Forge Project is a Native-led initiative centered on Indigenous art, decolonial education, and supporting leaders in culture, food security, and land justice. Located on the unceded homelands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok in so called New York State, Forge Project works to upend political and social systems formed through generations of settler colonialism.
Launched in 2021, Forge Project serves the social and cultural landscape of shared communities through a funded fellowship program for Indigenous culture workers, including those working in food and land justice, law and decolonial governance, and art. Forge hosts Native-led public education and events, a lending art collection focused on contemporary art by Indigenous artists, and a teaching farm and related programs developed in partnership with Sky High Farm.