DEER ISLE/PORTLAND, MAINE-From July 10-14, 2022

Indigo Arts Alliance will present Re/Union: Re-Editioning: Black + Native Histories, a convening at Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.

This gathering has been intentionally structured and designed to support an exclusively black and Indigenous audience, Re/Union: Re-Editioning: Black + Native Histories will take place over three days and will include talks by thought leaders, workshops by visual and performance artists, writers, and scholars and special meals by guest chefs. Participants will be multigenerational, individuals at varying stages of their lives—from emerging and young professionals, to mid-career, and elders in their respective fields. This gathering will be a moment to rethink, revise, rewrite, and embrace multiple ways of interpreting and reading that which has been historically and culturally left out, rendered invisible, or appropriated.

Indigo Arts Alliance was invited to design a program of their choosing. Haystack is proud to further amplify the work of the only Black-led arts organization in the state of Maine. For fourteen years, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts has been organizing summer conferences to explore ideas of craft, community, and the creative process. This year, Indigo Arts Alliance is reimagining an innovative gathering exclusively for artists from Black and Native American backgrounds.

As a Black-led and Black and Brown-centered artist residency program, Indigo Arts Alliance understands that these current times require a convening of creative thought leaders. Specifically drawing on the cultural traditions and experiences embedded in Indigenous and Black histories. Each day of the gathering has been organized based on three themes introduced by legendary scholars—Jessica B. Harris, Dr. Marta Morena Vega, and Jami Powell. For more information on workshop presenters and facilitators please visit our websites: indigoartsalliance.me and haystack-mtn.org.

Why a Re/Union?

• We are gathering to feed our Souls

○     This convening will be an opportunity to raise up Black and Indigenous value systems by honoring our relationship to Art, Food, and the Land.

○     This retreat will be a time of deep welcome, of nurturing and revitalization so that we are stronger as we return to our homes for the work and the living that is ahead of us.

• Re-editioning Black + Native Histories:   

○     Answering the question: What does it mean for Black and Indigenous communities to thrive?

■     We are convening to claim, reclaim, and re-imagine the histories, genealogies, and practicalities of ourselves as creative beings.

■     To reconceive ways of actualizing collective liberation by learning from one another. 

• Decolonize Euro-centered Worldviews  

○     Our collective wisdom will enable generating new pathways that aim to decolonize euro-centered worldviews.

○     As Black and Indigenous people our work is of critical importance to the wellbeing of our communities/nations and to the larger US and global politics of which we are a part.

This private, invitational registration for Re/Union: Re-Editioning Black + Native Histories is not open to the public, but the proceedings will be made widely available as the subject of the next edition of Haystack’s long-running Monograph Series. Re/Union: Re-Editioning Black + Native Histories embodies the goals of Haystack’s recent Strategic Plan and the School’s commitment to broadening the audiences the School collaborates with and learns from.

Generous support for Re/Union: Re-Editioning Black + Native Histories has been provided by Haystack’s Windgate Foundation Endowment for Programs, The Chipstone Foundation, Hegner Family Foundation, and National Endowment for the Arts.

Indigo Arts Alliance (IAA) is a Black-led organization dedicated to the professional development and amplification of Black and Brown artistic vision and practice. Founded in 2018 and formally launched in 2019, IAA is an incubator space with a mission to build global connections by bringing together Black and Brown artists from diverse backgrounds to engage in creative process through an Artists in Residency program. Visit indigoartsalliance.me to learn more and support their work.

Haystack Mountain School of Crafts is an international craft school located in Deer Isle, Maine. Founded in 1950 as a research and studio program in the arts, Haystack connects people through craft, provides the freedom to engage with materials, and develops new ideas in a supportive and inclusive community. Serving an ever-changing group of makers and thinkers, we are dedicated to working and learning alongside one another, while exploring the intersections of craft, art, and design in broad and expansive ways.