On Repairing Ties to Indigenous Ceremony & Culture Through Art (In-Person)

Choctaw multimedia artist Tricia Rainwater’s wide-ranging work is rooted in themes of identity and grief. Her artistic practice offers a perspective through the lens of a Choctaw survivor. Tricia grew up in nature and in ceremony, but her relationship with family and ancestry have been shaped by the long tentacles of United States policy and practice towards Indigenous peoples: specifically, the forced removal of Choctaw people from their lands and the journey on the Trail of Tears to Oklahoma. 
 
In her recent series, Falama: to return, she shares a sustained desire to repair ties to ceremony and culture. To create Falama, she set out on the Trail of Tears, the route followed by five southeastern tribal nations—including her own ancestors—when they were forcibly displaced from their homes to areas west of the Mississippi designated as Indian Territory. Along the way—seeking the familiar and finding a sense of place in the ground on which she was walking—she collected soil from her original familial homelands and sites along the Trail that were important to the Choctaw people. 
 
Join us for an engaging exploration of Tricia’s life and artistic work, and her ongoing explorations of return, reconnection, and repair with her Indigenous family, culture, and land, past and present. 
 

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Tricia Rainwater (she/her) is a Choctaw multimedia artist based in the Bay Area with roots in the Central Valley and New Mexico. Her artistic portfolio, which spans self-portraiture, sculpture, and large-scale murals and installations, has been featured in the Berkeley Center of the Arts, ICA SF, MOCA Toronto, and more. In 2022, she received a grant from the SF Arts Commission to trace the Choctaw Trail of Tears. Rooted in themes of identity and grief, her practice offers a perspective through the lens of a Choctaw survivor. With a B.A. in Theology and experience serving as a pastor on Arizona and South Dakota reservations, Tricia explores her tribe’s complex history with Christianity.
 

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Chantal Jung (she/they) is a Nunatsiavut Inuk and self-taught multimedia artist and writer with a focus on collage art, zines, video, and film. Chantal is originally from Happy-Valley Goose Bay, NL (Nunatsiavut), and currently resides as a guest on Ramaytush Ohlone land (San Francisco, CA). Chantal has produced animated work for the musician Black Belt Eagle Scout and the Bartow Project, and her writing and artwork have been featured in Inuit Art Quarterly and on the Inuit Art Foundation's website. She is a member of an Indigenous-led collective called Indigenous Honeys.  

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