We Circle Back To Move Into The Future: Léuli Eshrāghi and Cannupa Hanska Luger

In this conversation, artists Léuli Eshrāghi and Cannupa Hanska Luger untangle topics of Indigenous futures, science fiction, belonging, and the possibilities of language.

Léuli Eshrāghi is a curator and artist of Sāmoan, Persian and Guangdong heritage with a few Marshallese, English and German ancestors, living and working in Mparntwe/Alice Springs for the past year. Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multidisciplinary artist based in New Mexico, USA. He is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, and European heritage. 

The written version of this peer to peer conversation is featured in the 2021 Festival Book the 22nd annual imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival which took place online October 19-24, 2021 celebrating Indigenous storytelling in film, video, audio, and digital and interactive art. 

The 2021 Festival Book brings together voices from imagineNATIVE’s international community. Through essays, personal reflections, conversations, and poems, the Festival Book give readers insight into the overarching curatorial theme Fall Camp, Official Selected works in Audio, Digital + Interactive, and Film + Video, and Guest-Curated programs in Film at the online 2021 Festival. Purchase the publication which features this peer to peer conversation and so much more HERE

The recorded conversation presented here was edited and produced by Broken Boxes Projects with permission from the artists and imagineNATIVE. 

Music featured: Suplex by Halluci Nation

Special thanks to Nikki Little and Vanessa Martin of imagineNATIVE for making this artist intersection possible.

This conversation was hosted by Cannupa Hanska Luger of Broken Boxes Podcast

Bonus episode: WE ARE AWAKE - Mixtape for Resistance

This bonus episode features a reworked live DJ set by DJ Miss Ginger at The Art Of Indigenous Resistance exhibition and concert at Self Help Graphics, Los Angeles, CA, May 2017.

This mix is dedicated to all people who are awake and consciously fighting extractive industry, patriarchy, colonialism and standing up to protect our Mother Earth in whatever way you are able. This Mixtape Rework is dedicated to our brother Wake Self, Rest In Power.

Interludes featured are recordings of various water protectors onsite at Oceti Sakowin Camp gathered by Ginger Dunnill in 2016.

Music featured by:

The Water Song (artist unknown)
Alas
Kinnie Starr
Sacred Stone live onsite freestyle (anonymous)
Aisha Fukushima
Angel Haze
Rebel Diaz
Mob Bounce
A Tribe Called Red
Saul Williams
Tanya Tagaq
Legends & Lyrics
Nneka
Buffy Sainte Marie interview excerpt
Aceyalone
Wake Self
Audiopharmacy
Mr. Lif
Trevor Hall
Lyla June
Kumu Hina Chant onsite at Mauna Kea (DJ Miss Ginger rework)

Image: DJ MISS GINGER. Photo by The Werewulf Micah Wesley, 2017

Love Like You Mean It: Conversation with April Holder

In this conversation artist April Holder and I talk about motherhood, naming the narrow lens of social media, the accessible art of printmaking, dismantling the myth of loneliness, allowing our community (including cis men) to practice vulnerability as an act of repair, and to never back down from being the complex multi-dimensional people we all are. April reminds us that no matter how much we ‘do it the right way’, haters gonna hate and love will find its way to us, and she asks us to remember that we shape our own reality and gives us the task to LOVE LIKE YOU MEAN IT!

I first met April Holder smoking cigs outside of a warehouse on the southside of Santa Fe, NM in the early 2000’s at the Humble art space. She had purple or blue or green hair, a leather jacket studded up and sharp biting wit that is so rare these tender days, it was everything we could do to not spend the whole evening laughing when there was a show to put on. I was invited there as a DJ to play a set by fellow local DJ the Werewulf Micah Wesley, also an incredible painter. Little did I know that That time would become many times and a lifelong building of friendship and family would result, Including April. Today, we are witnessing our children become best friends, we are growing and inviting changed world views and better behaviours, we are supporting each other's goals and work and hearing the pain and evolution of being in community that can’t always appreciate or understand us or our growth as weird ass boss babe in between spaces human type beings. April is on fire, always reflecting back the idea that love is truly what will move us forward collectively and I am proud to call her a sister. 

April Holder with a painting in progress at the Institute of American Indian Arts AIR program, 2021. Image by Broken Boxes Podcast

April Holder is a Sac and Fox, Wichita and Tonkawa woman, whose ancestral lands run through Oklahoma and was born and raised in Shawnee. April’s artistic practice is a celebration of Indigenous women, an honoring of the land and animals, and the critical connections between. As an Indigenous woman, a mother and an artist, April recognizes the responsibility she has to create a healthy space for women like herself to thrive far into the future. 

April’s  focus is in painting and printmaking, and she carries an understanding that the creative process itself can have an environmental impact. She strives to lessen this by using recycled materials such as fabric, household objects and thread;  all found or sourced from thrift stores. 

April’s work presents a visual interpretation of the vulnerable and strong stories of Indigenous women, such as herself, while creating connection, continuum and a healthy way forward for her communities to reclaim their power.

Follow April Holder on Instagram @aeon_fluxus

Final track on this episode is the song POWERFUL by Am-Mer-Ah-Su

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast

Trust Yourself: Conversation with Oriana Lee

In this episode we get into conversation with the one and only Oriana Lee. I first engaged with Oriana in Santa Fe, NM while doing sound production for Wise Fool New Mexico several years back. I produced a track for one of Oriana’s live rap performances and ever since then we have continued to support each other's creativity in various ways within our community. For this conversation, Oriana breaks down her love for Hiphop, what it is like to be a life coach, we also decode identity politics a bit and Oriana reminds us that the most important thing you can do in this life is to “trust yourself”.

Oriana Lee identifies as an interdisciplinary artist of African descent, currently living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Shaped heavily by Black American culture, Lee’s artistic lens is primarily rooted in Hiphop principles - peace, love, unity, and having fun. Artistic activism around human rights gently threads through Lee’s creations with traditional African culture often infused through patterns, symbols, and storytelling. Lee’s contemporary art practice includes music, literature, performance, visual arts, recycled/upcycled art, installation art, and circus arts.

At the end of our conversation we here a track that Oriana recorded with her son for her recent solo exhibition, the song is titled Success by Physique & Olee from the 1010 Freestyle EP (2021).

For more info, visit, www.orianalee.love /IG: @oriana1ee

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast

By Breath & By Song: Conversation with Dakota Camacho

In this episode we hear from artist Dakota Camacho. They speak to us through song and story about depth in relationship to land, community and in what ways they practice their art. They speak on mindfulness in social media, protocol, witnessing elders and self, of accountability, how to embrace challenges as gifts, and so much more.

About the artist:

Dakota Camacho is a Matao/CHamoru artist born & raised in Coast Salish Territory who creates indigenizing processes by weaving languages of altar-making, movement, film, music, and prayer. Exploring the overlap between integrity, ancestral/indigenous lifeways, true love, and accountability, guiya (they) activates a Matao worldview to make offerings towards inafa’maolek (Balance and harmony with all of life). 

Camacho has presented yo’ña (their) work on five continents and throughout Oceania. Guiya is a Nia Tero Pacific Northwest Artist Fellow, Western Art’s Alliance - Native Launchpad Artist and the recipient of The New England Foundation of the Arts, National Dance Project Award, The National Performance Network’s Creation Fund. Camacho holds a Masters of Arts in Performance Studies from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, and graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with a Bachelor of Arts in Gender & Women's Studies as a First Wave Urban Arts and Hip Hop Scholar. Camacho is a chanter, adjunct instructor, and core researcher for I Fanlalai'an Oral History Project based at the University of Guåhan.

Yo'ña (their) work enacts spaces for multiple worlds, ways of knowing, being, and doing to speak to each other while unearthing embodied pathways towards collective liberation

https://www.dakotacamacho.com

Music Featured: Following our conversation we will hear a very special unreleased song by Dakota Camacho titled Fangoggue, exclusively presented for this Broken Boxes episode.

This conversation was hosted by Ginger Dunnill of Broken Boxes Podcast