The Native Art Center is proud to present fashion STATEMENT at the UAF gallery in Honor of National Native American Month, November 2011.
EXHIBITION:
fashion STATEMENT: Native Artists Against Pebble Mine
(Seattle) – Seattle artist and fisherwoman Anna Hoover is arranging a group show in opposition of the proposed Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay. The exhibition, comprised of artwork created by internationally celebrated Native artists reproduced on t-shirts and limited edition prints, will be exhibited and made available online for purchase to raise awareness for this movement. In August the exhibit will premiere at the International Gallery in Anchorage, AK, before touring to a series of venues around the US, Canada and New Zealand.
The Natural Resources Defense Council has stated, “If the Pebble Mine is allowed to go forward, it will inflict irreversible damage on Bristol Bay -- including the permanent destruction of sixty miles of salmon habitat.” Hoover’s grassroots efforts will join a host of celebrity voices, including Robert Redford and Tiffany and Co., to spread the message about the proposed Pebble Mine and its disastrous effects on the environment and region’s subsistence way of life. The recent threat of the proposed Pebble Mine would cause not only an environmental disaster but also erase an entire fishing industry that relies on the continued return of the salmon. Hoover discussed her personal connection to the cause:
I have spent my entire life returning summer after summer to Bristol Bay along with the millions of salmon that for millennia spawn in this area. It is not just a resource to me, but an important part of my existence and I recognize the importance of the health of the Bay in order for the continued sustainability of the entire region’s ecosystem. Working with close friends and internationally respected Native artists, the goal of this exhibition is to garner support for the protection of Bristol Bay and all who call this place home.
Currently slated to feature fifteen Native artists from around the world, fashion STATEMENT asks each artist to create a unique anti-Pebble design to be printed on t-shirts and limited edition prints.The artwork will both be displayed and sold at the gallery and via a soon-to-be launched website.
The show features designs by esteemed Native artists such as Joe David, James Luna and Larry McNeil, all of whom have asserted the centuries long relationships that Native peoples have created with their environments, through Native art activism. Featured artists include Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), Sonny Assu (Kwakwaka’wakw), Rick Bartow (Wiyot), Phillip Charette (Yup’ik), Joe David (Nuu-chah-nulth), Nicholas Galanin (Aleut, Tlingit), Anna Hoover (Aleut), John Hoover (Aleut), Brad Kahlhamer (Lakota), Richard Kereopa (Te Arawa, Ngati Tuwharetoa, Tainui, Nga Puhi), James Luna (Luiseño), Larry McNeil (Tlingit, Nisga’a), Da-ka-xeen Mehner (Tlingit), Tanis S’eiltin (Tlingit).
Anna Hoover has traveled extensively attending international gatherings of indigenous artists in New Zealand, Hawai’i, and Far Eastern Russia/Siberia. Her work has been presented at a number of galleries around the world, including a solo exhibition in Komsomolsk, Russia, and group shows at the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts, Princeton University (US, 2009), Proyecto ACE (Argentina, 2009), and the Bishop Museum, Hawai’i (US, 2007). She received a Fellowship to work with the gallery Alaska House New York and has received several commissions from the Burke Museum (Seattle, WA) one of which is currently on national tour.
This spring she is completing Master’s Degrees at the University of Washington in Documentary Filmmaking and Native American Art History. Anna Hoover comes from a long lineage of commercial salmon fishers, and proudly carries on the family tradition. She has an intimate connection with this land and these waters resulting from time spent working and playing in Bristol Bay. She is hopeful this exhibition dedicated to saving Bristol Bay and stopping the Pebble Mine will reach audiences far and wide.
ABOUT THE PEBBLE MINE:
fashion STATEMENT will draw attention to the attempt by foreign mining investors Anglo American and Northern Dynasty to place North America’s largest open pit mine at the headwaters of the last remaining wild sockeye salmon streams. Mine’s of this type do not immediately effect the surrounding environment, it may take up to 80 years before the resulting disaster is evident. Open pit mines across the globe, in South Africa, Papua New Guinea and Butte, Montana, show us the risks outweigh the benefits.
A local group of eight Bristol Bay village corporations calling themselves Nunamta Aulukestai, or Caretakers of the Land stated:
Native people have been subsisting off of these fish for thousands of years. To put this resource at risk for an unsustainable resource such as gold is not only foolish but it endangers the livelihoods of the residents, animals and plants that live here.
