Venaya Yazzie Presentation on “Native Woman Artist: Trekking the High Desert Matriarchland”

Join us for a special presentation featuring Diné/Hopi artist Venaya Yazzie on Saturday, November 2 at the Bears Ears Education Center. Yazzie, who created the Visit With Respect mural in Bluff, will share about how her art practices are connected to land and identity. 

The land as our ‘mother’ is an expression that is often used among Tribal cultural communities such as the Diné and Pueblo groups. For the Diné in the Four Corners high desert community, the earth is referred to as: nahasaan nihimá. The earth concept is symbolic and is integrated into our high desert epistemology as female, a female mother, and archetype or caregiver. Matriarchland is the essence of the steadfast Diné identity existing in a deeply rooted matriarchy. Our identity is embedded in the land, nahasaan nihimá which continually stands as the symbolic status of our strength as surviving southwest Indigenous people groups.

As a multi-media artist and poet Yazzie continually is inspired by the ‘Matriarchland,’ a term she authored to denote the roots of her origin within a landscape dotted with the essence of female compassion, relationships, and creativity; all aspects of K’é (family). For it is the land that she draws perpetual inspiration for her modern landscapes and skyscapes. And it is the land’s flora and fauna that too acts as visual stimulus. Venaya will share this experience via her visual artworks, land poetry and her unique narrative of life within the four corners community of northwest New Mexico, by way of eastern Navajoland.

This event will be held in-person at the Bears Ears Education Center, with a recording available after the event. Please register through the form below (not required).