Above: Gregg Castro (T’rowt’raahl Salinan, Rumsien and Ramaytush Ohlone), culture director, Association of Ramaytush Ohlone. Photograph by Kirti Bassendine
SANTA CRUZ—Contemporary Indigenous Voices of California’s South Coast Range: Enduring Relationships with the Land is an exhibition of portraits by Kirti Bassendine (b. 1962), featuring Indigenous community members from the South Coast Range: the San Francisco peninsula through the Santa Cruz mountains, Monterey Bay, and lower Salinan Valley. Bassendine’s photographs are accompanied by powerful personal statements from Native community members calling attention to cultural connections to the land, rematriation (restoring the relationship between Indigenous people and their ancestral land), and climate change. As an artist, Bassendine has always been intrigued by human relationships — especially how they impact the discovery of identity and belonging within one’s culture and the wider world. By bringing so many Indigenous voices together, she creates a unique experience for audiences to engage with these ideas themselves.
This exhibit is organized in consultation with the Association of Ramaytush Ohlone, and in collaboration with the Confederated Villages of Lisjan, Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area, Tamien Nation, Indian Canyon Mutsun Band of Costanoan-Ohlone People, Amah Mutsun Tribal Band of Costanoan/Ohlone, the Rumsien Ohlone Tribal Community, Esselen Tribe of Monterey County, and the Salinan Tribe of San Luis Obispo and Monterey Counties.
Where: de Young Museum | Kimball Education Gallery | Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118
Runs: October 7–January 27, 2023
FREE admission to the Kimball Education Gallery
Learn more and purchase tickets at the de Young’s website.
This project is supported by a Humanities for All Project Grant.
