Harvest Time at Dream of Wild Health, and the Merciless Exhibit at the Weisman

Transcript

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Marie Rock: For Minnesota Native News, I'm Marie Rock. This week, it's harvest time at the Dream of Wild Health Farm and an exhibit at the Weisman Art Museum celebrates Native resiliency 250 years after the formation of the United States of America.

First, reporter Dan Ninham interviews August YellowBird, Market Garden Manager for Dream of Wild Health.

Dan Ninham: With the leaves changing color and days growing shorter, the transition to winter marks the end of a busy time of year for Dream of Wild Health. They are a Native-led nonprofit dedicated to reconnecting urban Indigenous communities with traditional foods. The organization has a 30-acre farm in Hugo, located roughly 20 miles north from downtown St. Paul. Market Garden Manager August YellowBird, a citizen of the Arikara, Hidatsa and Mandan Nation says the farm is intertribal, meaning it brings together staff and volunteers from various tribal nations.

August YellowBird: Indigenous farming centered around our seeds, taking care of them and recognizing them as like a relative as opposed to like something to get something else from, you know, like trying to think about it as less extractive and more reciprocal.

Dan Ninham: The farm produces traditional crops. while also helping feed Indigenous families across the metro. On average, Dream of Wild Health distributes up to 25,000 pounds of produce annually.

August YellowBird: I like being able to work and knowing that the work that I do is to the benefit of Native people in the community.

Dan Ninham: While the farm prepares for winter, the work continues alongside Dream of Wild Health's mission, strengthening Indigenous communities and preserving the traditions that connect the to the land.

August YellowBird: For me and my market garden team, we're usually out on the farm cleaning things up until the snow flies.

Dan Ninham: For Minnesota Native News, I'm Dan Nanham.

Marie Rock: Next, producer Deanna Standing Cloud learns more about the exhibit Merciless: Indigenous Lands Since 1776 from Kendra Greendeer.

Deanna StandingCloud: It's Native American Heritage Month in the United States, and in Minnesota, Native artists are taking up space in museums and galleries. The Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis is home to Merciless: Indigenous Lands Since 1776. an all-woman artist exhibition.

Kendra Greendeer: I wanted to bring in artists that had an ancestral connection here who have worked in public art, but a lot of also my scholarship is on rematriation and the various ways that Indigenous femininity is being presented through art.

Deanna StandingCloud: Kendra Greendeer is an enrolled citizen of the Ho-Chunk Nation. She's the Ihlenfeld Curator of Collaborative and Community Exhibitions at the Weisman Art Museum.

Kendra Greendeer: I wanted to recognize that's in the document, but also to sort of reappropriate it in a way.

Deanna StandingCloud: That document is the Declaration of Independence.

Kendra Greendeer: Indigenous people are only referenced in this document as merciless Indian savages. In this framing of Natives being these merciless savages, there's still this very beautiful, harmonious understanding of where we exist and how that's being reflected in the stars.

Deanna StandingCloud: Natchez Beaulieu is from the White Earth Nation. Missy Whiteman is Northern Arapaho and Kickapoo. And Marlena Myles is Spirit Lake Dakota, Mohican, and Muskogee. These artists are featured in both indoor and outdoor installations that speak to a connection to Bde Ota Othuwe, the original name for Minneapolis.

Kendra Greendeer: We're still here, and 250 years is such a small period of time in the millennia of Native understandings of this place.

Deanna StandingCloud: Merciless: Indigenous Lands Since 1776, is on exhibition at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis until May 16, 2027. Admission is always free. check out their website at wam.umn.edu.

For Minnesota Native News, I'm Deanna Standing Cloud.

Marie Rock: That's all for this week's episode. Join us next time for more voices and stories that inform, uplift, and shape our communities right here on Minnesota Native News.

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Marie Rock: Minnesota Native News is produced by AMPERS, Minnesota's community radio stations, made possible by funding from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.