Indigenous Women Empower the Resistance!
Through event programing, music, printed material, podcasting, and interactive art, Dear Patriarchy is a platform created to provide recognition and space for Resistance Art and Action led by our Indigenous women and femme identifying communities, our Matriarchs and our humble accomplices. Together we create artistic resistance and support the protection for Mother Earth.
In appreciation for the hard work and accomplishments of Indigenous women, we are showing our love and respect collectively by creating radical content, event programming and organizing tactics which challenge and counteract the dominant capitalist, oppressive patriarchal society.
The Dear Patriarchy project centers women, acknowledging their work at paving the way in Indigenous art, music, resistance movements and their continued nurturing of our communities. In honoring our women, we are honoring the earth. You can’t have one without the other.
“As a project which centers indigenous women, we also recognize the crucial work of our queer, trans, two-spirit and non-binary communities, and we acknowledge that we have a lot of work to do; to walk together, to fight patriarchy together and move forward together.”
Dear Patriarchy Podcast Series Launch:
Dear Patriarchy is excited to announce the launch of an accompanying podcast series which will highlight collaborating artists and performers whose work directly challenges patriarchal oppression and its systematic toxic practices. The podcast series will be available through our sister project Broken Boxes Podcast with interviews hosted in rotation by Dear Patriarchy co-organizers Kim Smith and Ginger Dunnill.
Subscribe for free to Broken Boxes Podcast on Itunes and Soundcloud to access the Dear Patriarchy Podcast Series when it launches.
Dear Patriarchy Event:
On April 27th 2017 Dear Patriarchy held its first annual fundraising event. This evening included music, poetry, video and interactive art, raising funding and awareness for several Indigenous led resistance projects to protect Mother Earth.
The event took place at Meow Wolf, a notably non-indigenous and heteronormative art complex in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The event was held in this space with the explicit intention to acknowledge the need for more inclusivity and indigenous perspective in New Mexico's newly developing art spaces. Meow Wolf donated space, resource and staff, and then stepped back to allow for the Dear Patriarchy crew to hold up anti-patriarchal, Indigenous, radical and women centered content for the event.
“Our intention was to plant a seed of healing and solidarity into the belly of the beast.”
“Our intention was to plant a seed of healing and solidarity into the belly of the beast.”
The Dear Patriarchy event was co-organized by Kim Smith and Ginger Dunnill. Performers who took the stage included: NAHKO and Friends, Winona LaDuke, Radmilla Cody, Rulan Tangen of Dancing Earth, Tazbah Rose Chavez, Rose B. Simpson, Whisper, Say Wut?! The Beatbox Queen, Jennifer Kriesberg, Miss Ginger and Tanaya Winder
“The sold-out event featured a line-up of performers who each shed inspiring new light on some of the struggles and triumphs associated with their lives, their communities, and their passions. The audience laughed, cried, and mostly cheered as each performer poured their heart into the microphone.”
Paying it forward:
100% of ticket sales along with 'zine sales and onsite live screen printing donations from the Dear Patriarchy event were donated to non-profit organizations and community organizers independent from states and international governmental organizations. The organizations and inividuals supported by the first Dear Patriarchy event included:
NO Haul Uranium, Haul No! – An indigenous collaboration focusing on protection of Indigenous communities from radioactive contamination.
Michael Bowersox – A water protector facing felony charges, Michael Bowersox has been cooking with Seeds of Peace for decades, providing nourishment and community-building for social movements across the country. He has also been involved in countless direct-action campaigns for 30+ years, protecting mountain tops, roadless wilderness, sacred sites, justice and liberation for all peoples and the planet.
Zapatista Liberation School – An indigenous based learning school in Chiapas, Mexico.
*STAY TUNED FOR INFORMATION REGARDING THE NEXT INSTALLATION OF THE DEAR PATRIARCHY EVENT SERIES TBA
Read more about the performances, the event and a short interview with co-organizer Kim Smith on Indian Country Today Media Network by writer Chelsey Luger: EVENT PREVIEW, EVENT REVIEW