Blog Posts - AICHO

Members of U.S. Senator Tina Smith’s Staff visit AICHO for listening session

11/27/2019

Senator Smith's staff held a listening session on Native housing issues yesterday. Miigwech to Ravyn Gibbs, Senator Smith's Native American Outreach Director, and Daryl Olson, AICHO Programming Coordinator, for organizing this session, and for the community for speaking about the real housing conditions that Native people experience.

Click here to find out more.

Round Lake Traditions Ribbon Skirt Workshop

11/18/2019

Round Lake Traditions Founder/CEO Herb Fineday (Fond du Lac Ojibwe tribal member) taught 5 of our Gimaajii residents and 7 Native medical students the art of making their own ribbon skirt. This year's holiday season at AICHO will be dedicated to craft and sewing activities for our program participants to make gifts in!

Give to the Max 2019!

11/15/2019

We are so grateful for your contributions during #GTM2019 - thanks to you, we are $2,079 closer to developing the Niiwin Indigenous Foods Market. You can continue to follow our Facebook page and the Niiwin Market page on GiveMN (link below) for updates on the progress we're making.
We launched this campaign in an effort to give the public an opportunity to participate in fundraising for the market. This project is huge and there's much work to be done, but we're excited that you all decided to take part in the journey with us.

You can still join us in fundraising by following this link or sharing it with your friends: https://www.givemn.org/story/Niiwinmarket

Chi miigwech!

AICHO Youth Featured in Library Display

11/6/2019

NEW to the library: the opening of a community art gallery on the second floor of the Main Library! The current exhibit wall is adjacent to the updated Computer Center. Duluth Public Library is proud to partner with area organizations to exhibit diverse and culturally representative art from the region.

The inaugural exhibit is on display through January 2020. “Through Our Eyes” photography created by Native American youth is a collaboration with American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO.) AICHO hosted a five-day photography and digital storytelling workshop that allowed kids to access traditional culture through a modern medium, resulting in the vibrant exhibit on display through mid-January.
http://www.duluthlibrary.org/adults/art-in-the-library/

Indigenous Poetry Event

11/1/2019

An Indigenous poetry reading featuring Linda LeGarde Grover, Kimberly Blaeser, Babette Sandman, and Rocky Makes Room for Them was hosted at AICHO this October, with music by Lyz Jaakola.

Organized by Duluth Poet Laureate Gary Boelhower, the event included an invitation for other Indigenous people to share a poem or two as part of the open mic portion of the event. For further information, please contact Gary Boelhower, gboelhower@msn.com

The Duluth Poet Laureate Project was co-sponsored by the Friends of the Duluth Public Library, Lake Superior Writers, the English departments at UMD and CSS, and Lake Superior College. Please visit www.duluthpoetlaureate.org

Check out this video clip: https://www.facebook.com/wdse.wrpt.pbs/videos/529720714241696/

Powwow Highway with Gary Farmer

11/1/2019

Powwow Highway is a 1989 comedy-drama road movie directed by Jonathan Wacks. Based on the novel Powwow Highway by David Seals, it features A Martinez, Gary Farmer, Joanelle Romero and Amanda Wyss. Wes Studi and Graham Greene, who were relatively unknown actors at the time, have small supporting roles. AICHO was happy to host actor Gary Farmer for a screening of the film and a meet-and-greet session with the community!

Food Equity Timeline

10/31/2019

An incredible piece of activism and research was shared at our space, check out the description below of the Food Equity Timeline:

Many of us concerned with food and health disparities in our communities want to talk about the role that we can play in creating more just systems and fair outcomes for us all. We need opportunities to come together to reflect on the roles that policy, racial oppression, and social justice movements have had on our communities and our food system in a deeper context. At this training participants will walk along a physical timeline and explore how systemic inequities were created and reflect on the legacy we would like to leave for the future.

The present-day inequities in the food system are the result of hundreds of years of policy and action that favored white landowners’ interests over those of people of color and indigenous people. The brutal history of enslavement, divestment, and genocide - and the powerful stories of resistance to it - are obscured by today’s mainstream historical narratives. The Race, Policy and the U.S. Food System Timeline unearths these stories with the intention of informing present day actions to improve the food system for local communities.

For this Session, participants were invited to walk along a physical timeline and spend some time learning about how policies, decisions, and attitudes have intentionally shaped the food landscape we find ourselves in, and to understand that there has always been resistance and resiliency throughout that history. With this information we can ask ourselves “What is the legacy we’d like to leave for the future?” Knowing what we know, how can we use systems thinking and policy to create a more just, equitable, and regenerative food system? We’ll invite participants to use the supplies provided to add entries to the timeline as well as to envision what a different legacy might look like.

ZOE HOLLOMAN

Zoe Hollomon is a Community Food Justice Organizer and Community Planning Practitioner working with several local and national organizations and foundations to institute community-based planning and policies that focus on food justice, inclusive local food systems, and community economic development. Over the past fifteen years Zoe has worked with youth and adults in Buffalo, NY, New York City, Oakland, CA, Minneapolis, MN and St. Paul, MN to engage under represented communities in the decision-making that impacts their lives. She was formally trained as an Urban & Regional Planner at Cornell University and received her Masters of Science in Community Economic Development in 2007. In addition to working as a Racial Equity in Food Systems Policy training consultant, Zoe is also the Coalition Organizer of the Twin Cities Good Food Purchasing Policy Coalition based in Minnesota, and she teaches youth park planning and design at the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board.

We Remember

10/22/2019

AICHO hosted a domestic violence awareness event this October in the Powless Center. The event included a community screenprinting sessions where folks could print MMIW designs as well as special screens created by Moira Villiard. The event featured other memorial activities.

Mniidoos and Wiigwas: Pat Kruse and Rabbett Strickland

10/18/2019

Current Art Exhibition on display now through December 2019:
Mniidoos and WiigwaasAbout the Artists:
Rabbett Before Horses Strickland is an Anishinaabe member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians of northern Wisconsin. Rabbett grew up in the San Francisco Bay area with art as his constant lifestyle. His work has been influenced by European Renaissance and Baroque masters, including Botticelli, Michelangelo, Titian, Velasquez, Rubens and Leonardo, as well as by Ojibwe mythology.

Rabbett’s paintings each tell an individual story of Nanabozho that take the viewer to new and unexpected realms of personal relevance and universally meaningful content.

He has been featured in the American Indian Review, San Francisco Chronicle, Santa Fe Trend Magazine, Tea Party Magazine, and in the TV series Native Report. Recent exhibitions include Bell Street Gallery, La Pointe, WI Madeline Island (2015), Contemporary Canvases of Native Nations, Wisconsin Historical Museum, Madison, WI (2015), Gimaajii Mino Bimaadizimin, Duluth, MN (2014), and Right to Consciousness, Madeline Island Museum, La Pointe, WI (2012).

Pat Kruse was born in Oakland, California, is a member at Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, and a descendent of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, Onamia, Minnesota. An accomplished and awarding winning Ojibwe birchbark & quillwork artist & culture teacher. Pat has spent his life maintaining traditional Ojibwe basketry and teaching workshops to all people willing to learn.

Pat's art is in collections and at various locations, which include: Sherry Leedy Contemporary Art: Kansas City, MO; Plains Art Museum-Fargo, ND; Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota-Duluth, MN; Minnesota Historical Society-St. Paul, MN; Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewas, Legendary Waters Resort and Casino-Red Cliff, WI; Grand Casino Mille Lacs, Onamia, MN; Mayo Clinic-Rochester, MN; and Science Museum of Minnesota-St Paul, MN.

In 2015-2016 Pat was chosen for Native Artist In Residence, Minnesota Historical Society; St. Paul, MN; 2016 Native Arts and Culture Foundation Fellowship, Native Arts and Culture Foundation; Vancouver, WA

In 2018, Pat was one of eight accomplished artists awarded the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Mentor Artist Fellowship.

For more information, contact Moira Villiard at moirav@aicho.org.

2019 Indigenous Foods Expo

10/17/2019

Originally scheduled for the outdoors, the Indigenous Foods Expo was moved to AICHO's main building due to weather constraints. The event brought together roughly 2,000 people from all parts of the world to explore Indigenous foods and support regional entrepreneurs. Check out the video coverage of some of the events highlights and miigwetch for making history with us! We were grateful to make national news.