Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land

My art installation at the Coconino Center for the Arts, Flagstaff, AZ
Photo: Venaya Yazzie 2017
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The reality of Uranium contamination became real for me last year.  I was a part of a group of artists, both Navajo and non-Navajo, who visited the western region of the Navajo Nation reservation last year. We all experienced first-hand the poisoned land near the communities of: Cameron and Grey Mountain, Arizona. And, we all were able to sense an overlying oppression of the land by Uranium left by the government and by private mining entities in the years 1944-1986.

Although they have all left the contamination behind, uranium tailing still remain on the land and in the air via open, abandoned mines, and open pits where contaminated water used to be held.  This only one version of the plethora of injustices that have been done to Indigenous peoples and their ancestral lands. In Navajoland, this site is one of many that have been left for the new generations of Navajo people to deal with and live with.

As a participant in this group exhibition Hope and Trauma in a Poisoned Land, I was able to contribute this posted art installation. For me, this experience was eye-opening, and I was physically, emotionally and spiritually affected by my visit to western Navajo. This art installation concerned a visual depiction of the life of  a Navajo in a contaminated land. I used the ochre color hue to express the presence of what has been called "yellowcake," which is uranium. 

You can visit the exhibition in person through October in Flagstaff at the Coconino Center for the Arts, and or visit their website:

Uranium in Navajoland

The realness of this situation is pure sadness, and I can offer my prayers for protection.


Posted 9-8-17
VENAYA YAZZIE
ALLRIGHTS RESERVED 2017

A continuance of 'hozho'

Ancestral ways of living via the Navajo loom
Photo by Venaya Yazzie 2017
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

The things we do as Indigenous People is our resilience.

In the everyday life activities we perpetuate, we are growing stronger. The was in which we as southwest desert people enact our traditions, we are pursuing and attaining the goodway of life that our Creator gifted to us.

As Navajo women, we continue the matriarch tradition of weaving. The entire process of weaving is enacting the intangible concept of 'Beautyway' to a very tactile, tangible form via: the Navajo woman's loom, her weaving tools, the wool she uses and the design that this is imagining in her mind's eye.

All the ways we are as Navajo people, is the perpetuation of 'creation.' Even our Navajo tongue, our language is a continuance of 'creation' - the Navajo world is always in constant motion. So, with that knowledge, many of us work to stay balanced and thus keep the faith in our philosophy of 'hozho.'

As a Navajo woman who was raised up by my maternal grandmother, I was given the knowledge of the Navajo woman's weaving way of life, via the weaving tools. As an adult it is my responsibility to enact the ways of the Navajo weaving way. No one is saying, "You need to weave." I must be proactive and just do it.

I captured a moment in our home here in this photograph. In it you can see the Navajo loom and above it you can see my great grandparents. The history they established and left is for me to live from and by. I must be steadfast in my ways, this is a continuance of 'hozho' - it is my resilience!

Posted 9-7-17
VENAYA YAZZIE
ALLRIGHTS RESERVED 2017