Lower East Side Arts Community to Celebrate the Work of Diane Burns

Celebrating the life and work of Diane Burns (1957-2006), whose poetry engaged themes of Native American identity and stereotypes centered around her life living in the Lower East Side.

A night of poetry and video with special guests. This event takes its title from a line in Diane Burn's poem "Sure You Can Ask Me a Personal Question" (1989) and is organized by Native Art Department International, Artists in Residence at DTA and FABnyc. Refreshments provided.

Nicole Wallace is a poet, musician, and Managing Director of The Poetry Project, located at St. Mark's Church, NYC. She is currently at work on a chapbook manuscript, "WAASAMOWIN", and an essay film, gikendan // debwewin. She is originally from Gakaabikaang, located in what is currently called Minnesota, she is a descendent of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe).

Diane Fraher is the founder of American Indian Artists Inc. (AMERINDA) established in 1987, which is the only multidisciplinary arts organization of its kind in the United States providing programs and services to emerging and established Native American artists. Diane writes and directs narrative feature films about contemporary Native Americans; her latest project is project is the film "The Heart Stays". She has received numerous fellowships and awards for her filmmaking including a 2013 Fellow in Screenwriting from the New York Foundation for the Arts. Diane is an enrolled Member of Osage Nation with documented Cherokee heritage.

Sky Hopinka was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington and is currently based out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In Portland, he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His work centers on personal positions of homeland and landscape, designs of language and facets of culture contained within, and the play between the accessibility of the known and the unknowable. His work has screened and exhibited at ImagineNATIVE Media + Arts Festival, Images Festival, Courtisane Festival, Wavelengths, Ann Arbor Film Festival, American Indian Film Festival, Sundance, Antimatter, Chicago Underground Film Festival, FLEXfest, Projections, and the LA Film Festival. His work was a part of the 2016 Wisconsin Triennial and the 2017 Whitney Biennial. He was awarded jury prizes at the Milwaukee Underground Film Festival, the More with Less Award at the 2016 Images Festival, the Tom Berman Award for Most Promising Filmmaker at the 54th Ann Arbor Film Festival, and 3rd Prize at the 2015 Media City Film Festival.

Bob Holman is the founder of the Bowery Poetry Club, co-founder and co-director of the Endangered Language Alliance, and the author of 17 poetry collections (print/audio/video), most recently "The Cutouts" (Matisse) (PeKaBoo Press) and "Sing This One Back To Me" (Coffee House Press). He has taught at Princeton, Columbia, NYU, Bard, and The New School. Holman's study of hip-hop and West African oral traditions led to his current work with endangered languages. He is the producer/director/host of various films, including "The United States of Poetry" and "On the Road with Bob Holman". His film, "Language Matters with Bob Holman", winner of the Berkeley Film Festival's Documentary of the Year award, was produced by David Grubin and aired nationally on PBS. Holman traveled for the film and led workshops at language revitalization centers across Alaska and Hawaii, sponsored by the Ford Foundation. In 2018, Holman was awarded the Chambra d'Oc Premio Ostana Award for his work in language revitalization. His roots are in Harlan, KY, and he currently lives on the Bowery in New York City.

Nishnaabekwewag Negamonid is a three-member (Native American) Anishinaabe women's hand drumming group based in Brooklyn, NY. They are committed to language and cultural revitalization, using song to disrupt colonial spaces and speak to prior, persisting Indigenous presences. The group was born as part of an Anti-Columbus Day action in the American Museum of Natural History in 2016 and 2017.

"Oh, so you've had an Indian friend?"
Tuesday, May 24th, 2018
7:00pm
Downtown Art, 70 East 4th Street, NYC
Free with RSVP

Celebrating the life and work of Diane Burns (1957-2006),
whose poetry engaged themes of Native American
identity and stereotypes centered around
her life living in the Lower East Side.