R.I.S.E. nothing is natural

R.I.S.E.: Nothing is Natural at Reed College

(image courtesy Reed College)

August 11–October 1
Nothing is Natural was organized at Reed College by Indigenous artist Demian DinéYazhi’, curator and Director of Cooley Art Gallery Stephanie Snyder, and Indigenous arts collective  R.I.S.E. (Radical Indigenous Survivance and Empowerment). The exhibition, which was part of Converge 45 in Portland, Oregon, featured two installation works, one along the banks of tributary in Reed Canyon, and one in the historic Student Union. The outdoor installation, created by art collective Winter Count, titled “Nothing is Natural,” is an incredibly poignant work, redressing the notion of violence against the natural world, violence against women, and violence against Indigenous bodies. A work by Postcommodity, “Gallup Motel Butchering,” illuminated the contested nature of the landscape of Gallup, New Mexico as a commodified space — realities that tourism and the remnants of old Route 66 still present there — and that its identity as an Indigenous territory is often ghettoized. —Erin Joyce