2022 | Returning the River: A Joyful Intervention
Featuring the 2022 Artists-in-Residence:
Tina Orduno Calderon, Kelly Caballero, and Jessa Calderon
A day of action during the Frogtown Artwalk
September 24, 2022 | FSY Architects, 2902 Knox Avenue 90039
Kelly Caballero, Tina Orduno Calderon, and Jessa Calderon discuss their concern with the health of the river. Photo Credit: Liz Getz
In 2022 we brought three Indigenous Tongva Cultural Advisors onto our staff seeking insights and direction in developing programs and best practices to support the First People, LandBack efforts, and centering the health of the River and all her communities in our work. Moving with them in a flow of ideas and energy towards regenerative practices and communal modes of production, the advisors formed a collective Artist Residency to elevate the voices and visibility of the First People of the River.
Developed over six months of an ongoing creative engagement, Returning the River responds to the difficult questions, “How can the people heal when their river is hurting?”, “How can art heal a river and her people? “, “ What does it look like to be in community with the river?”
Many cultures have rituals that renew human connections to nature and re-establish our vital role as participants in the cycles of nature (i.e. the ecological networks that sustain us). Bridging our awareness of this ancient responsibility to the river, a sacred source of life, our Tongva Advisors stepped into the role of Artists-in-Residence, shifting into a recognizable cultural mode for present-day river dwellers in order to communicate and demonstrate careful observation and collaboration with the river where the river is the lead artist.
Jessa Calderon and Kelly Caballero in front of the Tongva name of the LA River. Photo Credit: Jenna Didier
Taking the first steps to “Land-back”
Lewis MacAdams the late poet and famous advocate for the river stated in his unfinished memoir, “When steelhead trout return to the L.A. River, our work will be done.” But how can the trout return without the Tongva to prepare them the way? Tongva history and ancestry are entangled with Paayme Paxaayt, pronounced Pi-mé pah-hīt and meaning “West River”-- it being one of many significant rivers that meandered through and shaped this, the First Peoples’ unceded land. Re-establishing the First Peoples in relation to the land and the river is essential to improving the habitat for trout and every living thing in the LA watershed - because the presence of the Tongva is integral to the maintenance of the ecosystem; they are the ancestral stewards of this network of life - return the River to the First People, and the trout will follow.
Be an ally.
Local Resources:
Sacred Places Institute
Regenerative Collective
Metzli Projects
WATCH: The Aqueduct Between Us by AnMarie and Isaiah Mendoza
Support local Indigenous efforts to secure land and occupy decision making positions regarding water and land use.
Please contribute to the Acjachemen Tongva Land Conservancy
We gratefully acknowledge support from our grantors and sponsors for Returning the River:
September 24, 2022
Featuring the 2022 Artists-in-Residence:
