Join us Friday, August 26 for “Beading, Land Acknowledgement, and Restoration”, a hands-on beading workshop led by Kimberly Robertson (Mvskoke). This is an in-person event at Transformative Arts at 410 S Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90013.
Each participant will be gifted a bead kit at no cost. We will bead collectively to operationalize Indigenous knowledge and connect to our ancestors and community. We will be making keychains that include a variety of materials but we also believe our beading practices should respect the local ancestral stewards on whose lands we bead. To do this, we often work with materials offered by the land in a sustainable manner and this particular project will feature acorns to honor the Tongva lands we occult in downtown Los Angeles.
No prior experience with beading is necessary to participate. If you have access to some, please bring a small pair of scissors and a small pair of jewelry pliers. If you don’t have them, we will have some on hand.
The workshop is free and all are welcome! To protect our community, we are limiting space to 15 participants so sign up now to reserve a spot. We will also be checking COVID vaccination cards and/or a negative COVID test at the door and ask all participants wear masks while indoors.
ABOUT KIMBERLY ROBERTSON
Kimberly Robertson (She/Her/Hers) is a citizen of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation and an artivist, scholar, teacher, and mother who works diligently to employ Native feminist theories, practices, and methodologies in her hustle to fulfill the dreams of her ancestors and to build a world in which her daughters can thrive. Robertson is an Indigenous anti-violence advocate who has received trainings and certifications from Sacred Circle, the former National Resource Center to End Violence Against Native Women as well as the current National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. Robertson is also an active member of the Los Angeles Indian community and is currently the co-creative director for Meztli Projects’ Ready to Rise Initiative.
Robertson earned an MA in American Indian Studies and a PhD in Women’s Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles in 2012. She is currently an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at California State University, Los Angeles. Her scholarship and creative practices: center Native feminisms, the ideas and practices of ceremony, storytelling, intersecting subjectivities, dislocation, decolonization, and Indigenous futurities; focus on Indigenous resistance to sexual and gendered violence; and include screen-printing, collage, beadwork, installation art, and zine-making.