{"id":49155,"date":"2021-01-21T17:11:28","date_gmt":"2021-01-22T00:11:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/virtual-show-explores-resilient-matriarchy\/"},"modified":"2021-01-22T00:11:28","modified_gmt":"2021-01-22T00:11:28","slug":"virtual-show-explores-resilient-matriarchy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/virtual-show-explores-resilient-matriarchy\/","title":{"rendered":"Virtual show explores \u2018Resilient Matriarchy\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"\u201cBizhi\u2019ba
\u201cBizhi\u2019ba Trekking through Ancestral Grief, Offering Migration as Healing V \u2013 Loss,\u201d digital photo, 2020.<\/span>Courtesy of Venaya Yazzie<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When multimedia artist Venaya Yazzie lost her grandmother to heart failure just about a year ago, her world was shattered.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe really just was my support system, and so when I lost her, I felt really lost, like completely lost. I feel like I\u2019m barely getting my senses back,\u201d said Yazzie, who lives in Farmington and is currently a featured artist in an online exhibit called, \u201cResilient Matriarchy: Indigenous Women\u2019s Art in Community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"&#x201c;Bizhi&#x2019;ba
&#x201c;Bizhi&#x2019;ba Trekking through Ancestral Grief, Offering Migration as Healing IV &#x2013; Resilient,&#x201d; digital photo, 2020.<\/span>Courtesy of Venaya Yazzie<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The exhibit is hosted by Open Doors Arts in Action, a project of the Episcopal Church of the Epiphany in Flagstaff, Arizona. Other artists in the exhibit, which is made up of art, poetry and reflections, are: Tacey M. Atsitty, Avis Charley, Lynnette Haozous and Monica Wapaha. \u201cWithin our art are narratives of life, of survival, of resilience,\u201d Yazzie wrote in the exhibit\u2019s introduction.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis project helped me because it asked me to really look at who I was without my grandmother,\u201d Yazzie said. \u201cI do mostly paintings, but I did study photography in Santa Fe at the Indian Arts School, I looked back at my education and kind of tell my story of resilience with photography about my grandmother\u2019s passing.\u201d<\/p>\n

For her part of the exhibit, which she titled, \u201cMigration Song, Flooding Narrative: A Photo Journey Trekking Matriarch\u2019s Memory,\u201d Yazzie\u2019s photos reflect childhood memories of spending the summer at Dzi\u0142thnaodi\u0142the, Huerfano, New Mexico. Made up of photos and poetry, Yazzie\u2019s work pays homage to her maternal grandmother, Jane Werito Yazzie, who died at age 89.<\/p>\n

\"&#x201c;Bizhi&#x2019;ba
&#x201c;Bizhi&#x2019;ba Trekking through Ancestral Grief, Offering Migration as Healing VI &#x2013; Healing,&#x201d; digital photo, 2020.<\/span>Courtesy of Venaya Yazzie<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cMy grandmother raised me. Her oldest daughter was my mother. But my grandmother and her husband raised me from when I was a baby. So really, she was my mother,\u201d she said. \u201cIn Navajo, we refer to our mothers, grandmothers as a shim\u00e1, and it kind of just incorporates that whole idea of a mother, a mother figure. She was the inspiration for a lot of things I did before she passed, but also \u2013 I call her my muse because she inspired me to do what I do, she never pressured me not to be an artist. I think because of her and her female lineage, we\u2019re always creators, we\u2019re always artists because we had weavers in our family, and seamstresses, those sort of art ways were always a part of the family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yazzie, an alumnus of Fort Lewis College, Institute of American Indian and Alaska Native Arts, and the University of New Mexico, said she got involved in the exhibit through a friend who lives in Flagstaff. Open Doors is an organization that hosts art shows that are based on community and look at sustainable community and nonprofit work, she said, adding that she took on a sort of \u201cco-curator\u201d role in the show, helping find artists she thought would fit in the exhibit\u2019s theme.<\/p>\n

\"&#x201c;Bizhi&#x2019;ba
&#x201c;Bizhi&#x2019;ba Trekking through Ancestral Grief, Offering Migration as Healing I &#x2013; Birthplace,&#x201d; digital photo, 2020.<\/span>Courtesy of Venaya Yazzie<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Because of Open Doors\u2019 commitment to community, five regional nonprofits were selected to be showcased that are helping either Indigenous women specifically or Indigenous people in general throughout the Four Corners. Those selected are: Adopt A Native Elder \u2013 Navajo; Adopt A Native Elder \u2013 Hopi; Changing Woman Initiative; Din\u00e9 Studies Conference; and Missing & Murdered Din\u00e9 Relatives.<\/p>\n

Part of the exhibit\u2019s mission, Yazzie said, is to create dialogue, something she said she hopes will happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I hope this show does with all these women artists is show the public (that) \u2026 even during hardship, our Indigenous people are still creating and they\u2019re still trying to maintain a type of normalcy,\u201d she said. \u201cI think for a lot of these artists, they\u2019re just reaching back to their roots of who they are as Indigenous women from their tribes that they\u2019re coming from and saying, \u2018Even though this hard stuff\u2019s going on, we\u2019ll still endure and we\u2019ll still continue what we do.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI just hope other people will see that and then say, \u2018Well, in my own life, how can I continue and keep trying to stay healthy and have my community healthy, have my family healthy?\u2019 And really looking at art as a way of healing, a mechanism.\u201d<\/p>\n

katie@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\n

On the Net<\/h4>\n

To view \u201cResilient Matriarchy: Indigenous Women\u2019s Art in Community,\u201d visit
\n www.opendoorsartinaction.com
\n . The show will be online until April.
\n For more information about Venaya Yazzie, visit
\n venaya-yazzie.square.site
\n .<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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