In this offering from brooke smiley, a Southern Ute elder, and members of brooke's collaborative community, we hear a description the project, the name of the project recorded by an elder of the Southern Ute community, and testimony about process, space, and meaning from community collaborators. The components are as follows:
* An introduction from artist brooke smiley
* An offering from the Southern Ute community. This recording was created by Crystal Rizzo in June 2023 and introduces the name of the piece
* An offering from brooke smiley meditating on process and inspiration
* Offerings, musings, and reflections from community members who collaborated on the project
* An invitation for you to get involved in the present and future experience of this piece. Please feel free to reach out, be in touch, or tag yourself in the project with the links below:
brookesmiley.comhttps://www.sozoartists.com/earthspeaks
IG: many__herds_____email: brooke@brookesmiley.com
About The Project:
EARTH.SPEAKS is a land-based public art project aimed at healing through community creation of earth markers, a sustainable practice of structure building. Led by Osage interdisciplinary artist and certified California Contractor Brooke Smiley, its urgency is rooted in the deep need for sustained body and land based healing processes. This work centers Indigenous Identity through reconnecting with our bodies, one another, and the land. Brooke guides communities including two spirits, youth, and the houseless population in building two earth markers, to uplift awareness of Indigenous history, present day visibility, and messages of the land.
EARTH.SPEAKS’ community-led process brings an awareness of the history of the land into public spaces. The emergence and building of this earth marker empowers Native individuals, centers Native individuals in community, and literally rebuilds these relationships by hand. Much of how Native American and Indigenous people are portrayed is often in the past tense. brooke believes “this is a real opportunity for the Native community to have agency in how we are portrayed and the unique gifts we have to share, centering our relationship with the earth.”
The core of this project is deep healing. It is seen, heard, felt, and touched; a celebration of memory and a return to self and community through conversation with the physical earth and one's own body. Over the course of this project, the community will experience collaborative workshops grounded in somatic education and sustainable earth building with clay and plaster. These trauma-informed workshops will center the embodied knowledge of local Native Americans, their stories, and connection to the land and its history.