#callresponse x EFA PRoject Space, New YORK

March 23 - may 5, 2018

Artists: Christi Belcourt, IV Castellanos, Marcia Crosby, Maria Hupfield, Ursula Johnson, Cheryl L'Hirondelle, Isaac Murdoch, Esther Neff, Tanya Tagaq, Tania Willard and Laakkuluk Williamson-Bathory with local respondents Jennifer Kreisberg and Laura Ortman

Organized by: Tarah Hogue, Maria Hupfield, and Tania Willard

Shining a light on work that is both urgent and long-term, #callresponse acts as a connective support system that begins with commissioned artworks created by Indigenous North American women artists and their invited guest respondents. Moving between specificity of Indigenous nations, site, online space, and the gallery, #callresponse focuses on forms of performance, process, and translation that incite dialogue and catalyze action across borders between individuals, communities, territories and institutions. The hashtag #callresponse connects the geographically diverse sites and provides opportunities for networked exchanges. A touring exhibition, #callresponse opened in Vancouver’s grunt gallery in 2016 and continues to engage each location with specific programming.

PRESS RELEASE

PRESS
Raising Indigenous Women’s Voices in a Campaign to Decolonize Cultural Institutions, Hyperallergic

EVENTS
#callresponse Co-Organizers Walkthrough and Opening Reception with Nishnaabekweg Negamond
Friday, March 23, 6 - 8:30 pm

Join visiting artists and co-organizers of #callresponse promptly at 6:00 PM for a walkthrough of the exhibition, followed by the opening reception. Nishnaabekweg Negamond is an Anishinaabe women’s handdrumming group that meets regularly in Brooklyn NY.

Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: The Land Sings with Ursula Johnson, Jennifer Kriesberg, and Laura Ortman
Sunday, March 25, 1-3 pm
The High Line - 14th Street Passage

Ursula Johnson invites Tuscarora singer Jennifer Kreisberg and Brooklyn-based violinist Laura Ortman to collaborate and create a song from and for the land. Ke’tapekiaq Ma’qimikew: The Land Singsis a series of ongoing performances or “visitations” inspired by Indigenous song lines—singing the land—as a navigational and relational practice. For this iteration Johnson and Ortman will use duration performance, song, violin and drum to enact their relations and responsibility to the land and waters of Lenapehoking / New York. Sited on The High Line, an elevated greenway built on a repurposed rail line, the New York visitation highlights the way humans have impacted the landscape, displacing the voices of Indigenous peoples.

Honoring Our Sisters Roundtable
In partnership with Amerinda
Wednesday, March 28, 6 - 8:30 pm

Honoring Our Sisters Roundtable is led by Indigenous women in conversation with guest respondents working at the intersection of art, advocacy and radical solidarity building with Indigenous peoples. Work from the exhibit will serve as a point of departure for conversation on ethical collaboration, recentering institutional power, and critical accountability to Indigenous Nations leading the movement for resurgence, decolonization, and reclamation of their homelands in North America. Participants include: Audra Simpson, Professor Anthropology Columbia University, Crystal Migwans, PhD Native Art History, Columbia University, Tarah Hogue, Senior Curatorial Fellow, Indigenous Art, Vancouver Art Gallery, with guest respondants Rocio Aranda-Alvarado, Senior Curator El Museo del Barrio, Jaskiran Dhillon, Assistant Professor of Global Studies and Anthropology, The New School, Carin Kuoni, Director/Chief Curator, Vera List Center for Arts and Politics, The New School, and MelissaIakowi:he’ne’ Oakes, Social Advocate and Organizer, American Indian Community House,. Moderator: Maria Hupfield, Artist.

Feet on The Ground Performance with Esther Neff, IV Castellanos, and Maria Hupfield
Saturday, April 28, 4 - 6 pm

Feet on the Ground is a participatory group performance and art collaboration that asks, 'how do we decolonize ourselves?' Featuring a custom-made toolbox containing items designed by artists Esther Neff, IV Castellanos, and Maria Hupfield, the artists invite the audience to participate in empowering the collaborative and considerate by making new items for the toolbox using materials provided onsite. Conducted as an ongoing series of performances, each one informing the next, this project brings together survival strategies of politically-minded performance artists.

The artists will introduce new items, and collaborate in the space with visitors and invited guests during regular gallery hours, leading up to this two-hour performance. For EFA's iteration of #callresponse, the artists have created a custom bookshelf and triangular bench-style pedestal. Unlike the military term “boots on the ground” the title Feet on The Ground is one where direct community interaction and liberation of the undressed foot takes priority over combat. Previous iterations of this project were performed in New York at MAWA Gallery, Bullet Space, and Emily Carr University of Arts and Design (Vancouver, Canada).

Cut Tongue Heart Speak with Natalie Diaz and Tania Willard
In partnership with Endangered Language Alliance
Thursday, May 3, 6 - 7:30 pm

Language revitalization and reclamation is central to the practices of a generation of Native Artists moving between urban and rural communities. Artist Tania Willard and poet Natalie Diaz will have a public discussion about the motivation and struggles behind learning to speak Secwepémcstin (Secwépemculecw/Interior Salish, British Columbia, Canada) and Mojave (Arizona, USA) respectively—learning the languages of their parents as a second language and as a subject that informs their different disciplines. The discussion will focus on the value of inherent meaning, and knowledge contained in distinct languages. Presented in partnership with Endangered Languages Alliance (Brooklyn), an organization providing opportunities for education and outreach around the preservation of the estimated 800 languages spoken in New York.

EFA Project Space
323 West 39th St, 2nd Floor
Between 8th & 9th Ave, Manhattan
Gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6 PM
Press inquiries: Meghana Karnik, Program Manager at meghana@efanyc.org or (212) 563 - 5855 x 229.

This exhibition is organized and circulated by grunt gallery, and presented by EFA Project Space.

#callresponse is a production of grunt gallery, funded by the {Re}conciliation Initiative a partnership between the Canada Council for the Arts, the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, and The Circle on Philanthropy and Aboriginal Peoples in Canada.  Additional funding support from The British Columbia Arts Council.

EFA Project Space's presentation of #callresponse is generously supported by The Shelley and Donald Rubin Foundation's Art and Social Justice initiative.