Essential Elements: Art, Environment, and Indigenous Futures

Earth, Air, Fire, and Water are essential elements of nature. As such, they sustain life and provide spiritual nourishment. They warm and feed us and are fundamental to traditional knowledge systems and cultural practices. They can be powerful in the ferocity of their effects, yet they remain fragile in their susceptibility to a changing climate, environmental contamination, and invading species. 

As one of the defining issues of our time, climate change threatens Indigenous communities worldwide. The loss of materials needed for creative practices affects the transmission of traditional skills and knowledge to future generations. Environmental degradation from the exploitation of natural resources is a legacy of colonization that continues to endanger the health and wellbeing of Native communities. 

Essential Elements uses the lens of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water to explore the impact of climate change and environmental destruction on Native homelands and how artists are sounding the alarm and advocating for action. From the devastation of wildfires and drought to the contamination of ecosystems from uranium mining and other extractive industries, art offers a means to explore human connections to our planet and its precious resources. Traditional ecological knowledge, developed and refined over generations, can inform strategies for adaptation to a changing environment and building a sustainable future---but only if we listen.  

On view in the JoAnn and Bob Balzer Native Market and Contemporary Art Gallery.

Image: Cannupa Hanska Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lakota), Future Ancestral Technologies: New Myth, 2021. Images courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, New York Photographed by: Gabriel Fermin