Local Partner: The Native American Academy
The main objective of the project is to convene The Native American Academy Founding Circle and Indigenous artists and knowledge holders who are contributing to the creation of The Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning in an intergenerational three and a half day (3 ½) ceremonial dialogue. The Academy is a table of elders with the traditional responsibility for the transmission of knowledge to the following generation. Depending on the location of the convening, we plan to ceremonially “seed” the Sculpture Garden by installing a Native art piece, “First Scientist,” and planting sacred seeds.
In 2015 The Native American Academy, in collaboration with The Cultural Conservancy, undertook the creation of a Sculpture Garden of Native Science and Learning, envisioned as a library of Indigenous knowledge of place, it uses a unique inter-tribal collective art project to communicate Native Science— wahkohtowin—“knowing how you are related to all creation” (Cree). The project design and execution by traditional artists and knowledge holders uses multi-media sculpture (stone, wood, bone, etc.) and traditional and contemporary techniques to create images, symbols, glyphs and forms that carry the living knowledge of Native science.
Recognizing Native science as “science” is a foreign concept to the western scientific community. The wholeness of native science crystallizes and enacts respect for all life. The knowledge is accessible only through deepening relationship. Creating a place to study through traditional learning processes can bring these divergent ways of knowing the world into an ethical, productive and urgently needed collaboration to the benefit of all forms of life. Of equal importance is the fact that our communities are facing the immediate effects of climate change and we must find the ways that this project can support and respond to these needs as an integral element in the creation of The Garden.
We were not able to move forward with planning the convening and as a result we have paused on the details of the gathering until it is safer for our communities to travel across state and international lines to meet.
We were able to confirm our commitment with The Cultural Conservancy (TCC) and their land stewardship initiative Heron Shadow. TCC also worked to record Rose for their new podcast series highlighting/documenting/sharing the importance of the work through audio-video recording.
Tim Paul as the artist to carve the first piece of the initiative. He has already begun carving “First Scientist”
Local Partner:
The Native American Academy Founding Circle are a group of Native scholars and Traditional Knowledge Holders that, since 1992, have dedicated their work to broadening the contemporary concepts of science and learning to include Indigenous knowledge systems and processes and to foster efforts to increase cultural competency and understanding of Indigenous worldviews, Native science, and Indigenous learning processes. Many hold advanced degrees and/or are Traditional Knowledge Holders. They are recognized leaders within the Indigenous world, within their disciplines, and in the national and international forums where their work is presented. The Academy network of relationships reaches from Canada and the Americas, to the South Pacific, South Africa and Europe. Since its inception, the Academy’s strategies have included ceremonial indigenous dialogue as well as writing, teaching and action projects.
