Indigenous History and Art

Organized by:
Heather Bruegl
Tamara Aupaumut
Dan Taulapapa McMullin

Land Acknowledgment: It is with gratitude and humility that we acknowledge that we are learning, speaking and gathering on the ancestral homelands of the Muhheaconneok / Mohican, who are the indigenous peoples of this land. Despite tremendous hardship in being forced from here, today their community resides in Wisconsin and is known as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community. We pay honor and respect to their ancestors past and present as we commit to building a more inclusive and equitable space for all.

“To enter Samoan-American poet Dan Taulapapa McMullin’s poems is to swim deep within the unspeakable dangers and vibrant life of Moana, the literal and figurative ocean.” --Slope

“A poetic corrective to the West’s violent appropriations and erasures.” --Hyperallergic Magazine

“This is actually modern poetry at its essence: an ongoing test of language’s limits.” --Partisan Magazine

Taulapapa is an artist and poet from Eastern Samoa, whose book of poems Coconut Milk (2013) was on the American Library Association Rainbow List Top Ten Books of the Year. His most recent book Samoan Queer Lives (2018), was co-edited with Yuki Kihara. Taulapapa’s performance poem The Bat and other early works received a 1997 Poets&Writers Award from The Writers Loft. His artwork was in exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, De Young Museum, Oakland Museum, Bishop Museum, the United Nations, Auckland Art Gallery, and Musée du quai Branly. His film Sinalela won the 2002 Honolulu Rainbow Film Festival Best Short Film Award. Taulapapa’s film 100 Tikis is an appropriation work about tiki kitsch and indigenous sovereignty, it was the opening night film of the 2016 Présence Autochtone First Peoples Festival in Montréal; and was an official selection in the Fifo International Film Festival in Tahiti; and Pacifique Festival Rochefort in France. He is currently working on a novel and a suite of collages reflecting on the queer history of Polynesia, and co-editing a a queer Pacific Islander anthology entitled Queernesia. Taulapapa’s art studio and writing practice is based in Hudson, New York, where he lives with his partner. More on his work can be found at taulapapa.com.

Tamara Aupaumut, born 1977 on traditional Luiseño/Payómkawichum land, works and resides in Minneapolis, MN, traditional Dakhóta land. She descends from the Stockbridge-Munsee Community Band of Mohican Indians, the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, and the Brothertown Indian Nation. Tamara is a self-taught multidisciplinary artist and independent curator. She works in a variety of mediums including painting, ceramics, printmaking, fiber, photography, and film, as well as traditional artforms of quillwork, beadwork, and birchbark. Tamara’s cultural heritage and ancestors are an integral force behind her research and artistic output. Themes she explores are connection and identity, the relationship between dualities in the environment and in social constructs, Mother Earth, space and time, dreams, and place. She is currently the Curator-In-Residence at the American Craft Council, and is producing a workshop and curating an exhibition this fall highlighting three Native American artists and how their expertise in traditional artforms evolves with them in a contemporary world, blurring the line between craft and fine art.

Heather Bruegl, a member of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, is a graduate of Madonna University in Michigan and holds a Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in U.S. History. Inspired by a trip to Wounded Knee, South Dakota, a passion for Native American History was born. She has spoken for numerous groups including the University of Michigan, College of the Menominee Nation, Shawano County Historical Society, the Kenosha Civil War Museum, Stockbridge-Munsee Band of the Mohicans, and the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin. She has spoken at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh for Indigenous Peoples Day 2017. Heather also opened up and spoke at the Women’s March Anniversary in Lansing, Michigan in January 2018. She also spoke at the first ever Indigenous Peoples March in Washington, DC in January of 2019. Summer 2019, she spoke at the Crazy Horse Memorial and Museum in Custer, South Dakota for their Talking Circle Series. She has also become the ‘’accidental activist’’ and speaks to different groups about intergenerational racism and trauma and helps to bring awareness to our environment, the fight for clean water and other issues in the Native community.

A curiosity of her own heritage lead her to Wisconsin, where she has researched the history of the Native American tribes in the area. While Heather calls Michigan home, she has recently moved to Wisconsin and is now the Director of Cultural Affairs for the Stockbridge Munsee Community. In addition to that she also currently travels and speaks on Native American history, including policy and activism.

The Hot Topics Series of The Hudson Eye 2020 was made possible via a Relief Grant from Humanities New York.