“The People, The Human Beings,” on display at the Generator Space gallery through June 25, is the debut of Unceded Artist Collective. Unceded is a community and directory of indigenous artists living on land stolen from tribal nations. It is the creation of local artists Nate Ruleaux, Sarah Rowe and Steve Tamayo. Courtney Bierman spoke to Ruleaux about the collective’s origins and the visibility of Native art in Omaha.
First, can you just tell me about how the three of you came together to form Unceded?
A little over a year ago, I started meeting more Native folks during actions and memorials for Zachary Bear Heels, the Native man who was killed by the OPD. And while I was there, I was able to talk with the community and meet new folks, and we were able to kind of come together to call for justice and honor Zachary's life and memory.
But at the same time, we were able to kind of get to know each other a little bit more. And I actually didn't meet either of these two artists there. I saw Sarah there, but I did meet a lot of other people in our community who had seen my work around town. And I'd seen their work, but we hadn't had a chance to really meet up, especially with COVID going on.
There are a lot of different tribes within our city, and I think people don't really know that. It's something we're always fighting against, the concept of being put under an umbrella of Indians or Native Americans or indigenous people, when there are big differences between us. And we have a lot of different tribes, but we're bound together by being indigenous and our shared experiences. The more I talked to people, the more we were just like, “We'd love to hang out, we want to support each other, we like seeing each other's work out there.” And there didn't seem to be a lot of opportunities for that kind of stuff. That kind of planted the seeds of, “Okay, we all need to hang out more, and we'd love to see something where we could do a show together or support each other in some way.”
And then some time passed. And I started working as a Culture Work Fellow for ArtStock, which is through Amplify, and I kind of noticed early on, it felt like there was not there were not a lot of Native indigenous voices in the room. And when we were gathering information, we weren't hearing a lot from the community. And I, as a native man in this town, I couldn't feel like we could accurately grow the sector for all if we weren't hearing from certain communities. So I was like, “I'm gonna go start talking to people.” And I just kind of reached out and was kind of cold-calling folks to see if we could talk about arts and culture, kind of like we're talking right now in a little interview.
We talked about anything from representation of Native and indigenous people in the arts community here: “Have you seen a show with Native actors? Have you seen a band with Native musicians? Have you seen Native artists have their work up here in town anywhere? Galleries? Around?” The general answer was no. I was kind of expecting that. We talked more. We talked about things too like cultural appropriation, performative action, the difference between a lot of the equity and diversity and inclusion work that's going on right now, and what's the difference between somebody being like, “All right, I'll make stuff better with a land acknowledgement, and that's all I need to do,” besides actually working to make change in our community and be equitable. So in those conversations, it kept coming up and up that people were saying, “Hey, I'd love it if there was some sort of collective or some sort of organization where artists could meet and collaborate and plan and work together and support each other. And I just kept thinking about that, and I talked with other artists in town about it. And I was like, “I want to do this. I want to start this with folks."
Eventually Amplify Arts, which is this organization that is putting up our exhibition and I work for as a Culture Work Fellow — they do so much for our community. Like, really are the only place in town — I heard speaking with other folks, and personally — that I know of that really supports Native and indigenous artists in this city in a way that is financial, that is getting our work out there, that is bringing us together. That's kind of where Sarah, Steve Tamayo and me meet up.
And so I was like, “I'd love to do something with these two.” And I really felt it was important to focus the group in the Omaha metro area, because I think a lot of folks here are like, “Well, there's no there's no Native, there's no indigenous artists in Omaha. I don't know who I'm supposed to talk to about this if I have a question or if I'm trying to do something that involves the community.” I got tired of people having that excuse. So part of the Unceded Artist Collective is also being an online database too, an artist directory. So you can go and find artists who are members of the collective, see their work, see their contact info. How can you work together? How do you want to hire them? So I thought that'd be a really cool way to kind of get that out there.
Tell me about the decision to call it Unceded Artist Collective. Why that word?
We're on the Unceded land of the Umónhon and the Očhéthi Šakówiŋ. When I was first starting off, I was thinking about how to get the word "Native" in there. And the more I thought about it, the more it felt unfair and exclusive of other indigenous people. There's many, many tribes throughout Turtle Island, throughout the Americas, and there aren't actually that many that are federally recognized. My tribe, the Oglala Lakota Nation, is, but there are a lot of indigenous people who, through white supremacy and settler colonial practices, have been erased. That's part of the the genocide committed in the building of America.
It became important to me to recognize that we belong to this land, and indigenous people belong to this land. I wanted to kind of tie that idea of unceded territory, unceded land, land that does not belong to the ideas of settler colonialism, land that does not belong to white supremacy; but a people who belong to that land are the folks who make up this collective.
Our show, "The People, The Human Beings'' is named after a quote from John Trudell. He talks about how the concept of the word “indigenous” or the concept of Native Americans didn't exist pre–settler colonialism and before white supremacy was brought to this land. Before that we were the people, the human beings. A dangerous game that we're figuring out right now is this part of the genocidal practices of erasing Native people from our conscious, from our world.
I always tell people, the further away from Chimney Rock I've moved in my life, the less people believe that Native Americans exist. And they just think there were Indians, and they're all dead now, and I don't have to worry about it. And that's why my Washington football team can be named this, why I can wear headdresses at Halloween. Part of that is because if you take hundreds of different tribes and nations of people of different cultures, beliefs, backgrounds, practices, hopes and dreams, and you blanket it all with that concept of Indians, then it can wipe away the humanity of these people. And our humanity taken away like that leads to violence and atrocities and genocide. Where was I going with this? [Laughs] I'm saying, we did Unceded Artist Collective to kind of allow for diversity in people, in tribal nations, in stories. Because even the Native American experience is very different than First Nations people's experiences in Canada, different experiences in South America, but we all have things that tie us together.
So focusing on this land not belonging to others, but focusing on the people who belong to that land was sort of a way to try to keep the door open and not be exclusive. We don't want to be some sort of art club that doesn't allow folks into it.
It sounds like it's a very foundational piece of what you hope or wish indigenous artists’ experiences were like in Omaha and in the country as a whole.
There's not a lot of Native or indigenous representation in our arts and culture scene, even though there's things all around us that are taken from Native people: the name of our city, imagery before Mutual of Omaha changed their logo. There are these things here, there were these mystic, appropriative things out there, but there weren't real, honest depictions. Even though we do have some things here in town that might talk about the history of Native people here — you know, dark corners of museums, tiny areas of galleries dedicated to old famous paintings of Indians on horseback and ravines and hills and stuff — there's not really a modern art sense, or modern performer sense, or any sort of indication that we're still here. That's a big part of the exhibition and of the collective, is this idea of we're still here.
All three artists in this exhibition, we're from different backgrounds — multiracial, multi-heritage, we all have Lakota tying us together — but we're enrolled with different nations with different tribes. There's a modern sense to things, even working traditionally and through traditional imagery and carrying on and honoring the legacies before us. A lot of this is showing the reality that Native people, indigenous people are here right now. Just look at the news right now with Rick Santorum saying that America was founded on this empty land: “There were a couple of Natives here.” That is this crazy, insane lie that has been built and spread through our history, and it's something that we're fighting against all the time.
A little example of it: my kid loves this 1950s Disney documentary about the Olympic elk. It's about these elk in the Olympic National Park area. They go up this mountain every year, and they live their lives, they go back down. It's very peaceful and nice. But throughout the documentary, they talk about how it's this pristine, untouched part of America that no man has ever set foot on. And that's a lie. Native people have lived there for many, many, many, many, many, many, many more years before any white people had come to this area, to Turtle Island. And it's a really dark thing to think about when you really grasp the concept that not only in the founding of our nation and the practices of settler colonialism was this like genocide committed, but it continues to this day. To just not acknowledge the factual history of it is extremely troubling, and it makes us not learn and do better and move forward as people — however we do that together.
Can you tell me more about the exhibition itself? What will people see when they walk into the Generator Space?
A lot of people who have gone into that space build something or do a collaborative piece. And what I really wanted to do was show our work that we have, or work that we're working on right now, and kind of put it all together in the space, so folks can kind of experience the collective at once, but also our individuality. I'm going to have a piece up, kind of a larger canvas, a painting, and some ceramics. Steve's going to be working with some different drums and traditional items that he's made. Sarah is working on some performance work with some visuals together.
A reason why I was excited to work together in the first place is we have these things that are very different about us, but there's kind of this cool tie between it all. There are things about the traditional building and work and history behind Steve's work and what he creates, and all of our work deals with identity, and ties our past and our presents. My work is drawing from my grandfather — who was an artist who worked with a lot of traditional imagery — linking that to myself and my kid. And then Sarah's work has this very modern, inclusive with a community active element to it, to where we kind of tell a story in our three styles, which are very different, but still all are connected through our indigeneity, but also our humanity and our lives as people.
We're also working to have two young artists show some work here too. All three of us are really passionate about the next generation and providing opportunities for youth that weren't there when we were around. I feel like there are more opportunities growing, especially with organizations like Amplify around, but we want to, as part of Unceded Artist Collective, create space and give space to the next generation of indigenous artists in town. So we're trying to bring in two young artists to kind of show alongside of us. We're gonna try and keep it virtual too, because we're not out of the woods yet with COVID. So we're gonna have some virtual elements, kind of a gallery walkthrough, trying to show some performance work that way too. And then we'll have another event at the end that we're working on right now. We're talking about having it be an arts and culture conversation with some indigenous community members who we think could really share their experiences and their histories with arts and culture in the metro too.
All three of us are pretty cheery folks. Even though we were talking about some serious, heavy things — a history of genocide that we all share — we all love life and the people and our experiences. And we like a big party, so we do want it to be this celebration of the people and of each other and our arts community.
What is your ideal future for Unceded Artist Collective?
I really just wanted a space where, first, we could just hang out and collaborate and share ideas and work together on shows, that kind of thing. But there's a big list of goals and ideas of starting off with working together, getting a hold of each other and creating this artists directory, so we have the artist directory to get other folks pointed to the work of indigenous artists in the Omaha metro area. But also to learn more about each other and be able to be like, “Hey, I'm
doing this thing, and I would really love a drummer, and I see on your artist directory that you play the drums. Let's do this the show together. Let's do this performance together. Let's do this play. And I need a drummer to do this cool thing.” That's kind of the start.
I'd like to eventually have a store on the website where folks can sell their art through Unceded Artist Collective. I'd like to find ways for us to, as a group, apply for grants. There's a lot of great grant opportunities for groups in our area, some through Amplify Arts. But there's other larger state ones that I think teaming up on is a little bit less daunting of a task. As somebody who has applied for grants solo, I think a group can kind of help support you in that and kind of work together that way.
I really care about finding ways to stay active in our community to educate and maybe have classes, that kind of thing. Even if it's virtual still too, some tutorials online, and just grow as an organization to connect folks. It's a space for us to take up and a space for us to share with others, but it's also a space for us to have community and to share our urban native, urban indigenous experience together.
Just having that support is nice. I mean, we've been so distanced through COVID, but we were distanced before that. There's a lot of forces keeping us apart with that representation in the city and in arts and culture. That also keeps us from seeing each other. We all know that we're here. There's plenty of Census data. When we do come together for things like the memorial for Zachary Bear Heels, different activist actions, I think there's a really powerful connection that you feel there, and I want that to exist with Unceded Artist Collective to energize us to do a lot: to create cool art and to make a difference in our community.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
