Refractions: Contemporary Indigenous Art in Public Space talk

This panel brings together artists and practitioners to reflect on, consider, and uplift the transformational power of Indigenous art in public spaces and the particular concerns around public commissions for First Peoples artists. Featuring Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva/Scottish), Gerald Clarke (Cahuilla) and Mercedes Dorame (Tongva). Co-moderated by Joel Garcia of Meztli Projects and Patricia Garza as part of the City Hall Mural project series.

These artists' work can be seen in the related exhibition, "Refractions: Contemporary Indigenous Art" at the Annenberg Community Beach House Gallery, opening November 3, 2024 and on view through May 25, 2025.

Weshoyot Alvitre is a Comic book artist, Art Director, Writer and Illustrator who uses pop culture and sci-fi alongside archival materials and tribal knowledge to spark conversations and provide fuller representation of her Indigenous community across colonial narratives. She was born in the Santa Monica Mountains on the property of Satwiwa, a cultural center started by her father Art Alvitre. She grew up close to the land, raised with knowledge that inspires the work she does today. Alvitre has made a conscious choice to work primarily within Native-owned publications and educational avenues, to further support a self-funded narrative on past, present and future Native issues.

Gerald Clarke is a visual artist, educator, tribal leader, and cultural practitioner whose family has lived in the Anza Valley for time immemorial. As an enrolled citizen of the Cahuilla Band of Indians, Gerald lives in the home his grandfather built, circa 1940, on the Cahuilla Indian Reservation and currently oversees the Clarke family cattle ranch. He is currently a Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California Riverside. Clarke has received an Eiteljorg Museum Fellowship for Native American Fine Art and served as an Artist-in-Residence at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Recently, the Palm Springs Art Museum hosted Gerald Clarke: Falling Rock, the first major retrospective of his work. Clarke holds a B.A. in Art from the University of Central Arkansas and the M.A./M.F.A. degrees in Painting/Sculpture from Stephen F. Austin State University located in Nacogdoches, Texas.

Mercedes Dorame is a multi-disciplinary artist who calls on her Tongva ancestry to engage the problematics of (in)visibility and ideas of cultural construction and ancestral connection to land and sky. Born in Los Angeles, California, she received her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and her undergraduate degree from UCLA. Dorame’s work is in the permanent collections of the Getty, the Hammer Museum, LACMA, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Triton Museum, among others. She is the recipient of grants and fellowships from organizations such as Creative Capital, the Montblanc Art Commission, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. She teaches at CalArts in the Photo Media Program.

As part of its Acknowledge and Reframe Together (Reframe) initiative, the City of Santa Monica began a public process in 2022 to consider the meaning, impact and potential responses to the WPA-era mural by Stanton Macdonald-Wright in the lobby of historic City Hall. The City Hall Mural (CHM) project offers a series of civic memory conversations and events exploring the diverse histories and contemporary communities of Santa Monica. These events explore topics in public art, how community stories are told and who is reflected and represented in our civic memory. More information about the Reframe: City Hall Mural project: https://www.santamonica.gov/city-hall-mural.