Tune into KSFR 101.1 FM to hear current IAIA Artist-in-Residence (A-i-R) artists Demian DinéYazhi’ and Liselotte Erdrich in a conversation with IAIA Director of Marketing and Communications Eric Davis on “Through Our Eyes.” Stream the live broadcast at www.ksfr.org or listen to previous shows at www.throughoureyes.libsyn.com.

Demian DinéYazhi’

Demian DinéYazhi’

Demian DinéYazhi’ is a Portland-based transdisciplinary artist born to the clans Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water’s Edge) and Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water) of the Diné (Navajo). His work is best understood through the lens of curatorial inquiry, zine production, street interventions, education, workshops, and art production. Demian’s artwork and writing is an evolving inquiry into Radical Indigenous Queer Feminist ideology and has been exhibited and published nationally and internationally. He received his BFA in Intermedia Arts from PNCA, where he received the Intermedia Department Award for his thesis exhibition “Bury My Art at Wounded Knee: Blood & Guts” in the Art School Industrial Complex. He is the founder and director of the artist/activist initiative, Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment (RISE), which is dedicated to the education, perseverance, and evolution of Indigenous art and culture. DinéYazhi’ is the recipient of grants from Evergreen State College (2014), Portland Institute of Contemporary Art (PICA) (2014), and Art Matters Foundation (2015).

Liselotte Erdrich

Liselotte Erdrich

Liselotte Erdrich (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) left a 30-year Indian health and education job to pursue a longstanding interest in tribal history and the old Anishinaabe art form of birchbark pictography, “our original writing.” Erdrich stayed with her grandfather, Patrick Au-nish-e-nau-bay Gourneau, while she was in her teens. He made catlinite pipes, hand drums, war clubs, and other wonder objects. He had a prayer bone containing all kinds of seeds and a peace pipe handed down in his family for generations, along with pictographic items. Erdrich was influenced by her grandfather’s fortitude, selflessness, and artistic practices, which ranged widely. Those items were stolen after he died so Erdrich aims to continue the traditions and re-construct what was lost.

Her birchbark pieces were exhibited at Plains Art Museum and at Lewis & Clark State Park, where she was an artist-in-residence. In addition to being a visual artist, Erdrich has written fiction, essays, and children’s books illustrated by Native artists Julie Buffalohead and Lisa Fifield. She has won numerous writing awards including International Reading Association Children’s Choice and Teachers’s Choice Awards and Carter G. Woodson Medal from the National Council on the Social Studies.