Description

This grant will allow the Abbe Museum to pilot and host the Indigenous Arts & Ideas Festival (working title) in Bar Harbor, ME in July 2024. The Abbe has long held an arts market but this year they will expand the market to include an Ideas Festival that will feature talks, panels, and workshops by Indigenous leaders on some of the biggest questions of our time (e.g., climate justice, food systems, democracy/sovereignty, etc.). The Ideas Festival helps move this event beyond an arts market to a place of engagement and cultural continuance, providing attendees with a deeper understanding of Indigenous worldviews, and their application to the solutions that many, including legislators, climate scientists, advocates, educators, artists, and health practitioners seek as we necessarily move towards a more sustainable and healthy future for people and the planet.
 
Hosted on Wabanaki homelands, the festival would center Wabanaki thought leadership and include select national Native speakers. The Abbe submitted possible event speakers with their reqest and may include: Passamaquoddy Lawyer  Michael-Corey Hinton ; US Ambassador and Cherokee Citizen  Keith Harper ; Maliseet Author, Scholar and Advocate  Suzanne Greenlaw ; US Park Service Director  Chuck Sams  (Umatilla); Lakota Chef  Sean Sherman ; Wampanoag Chef  Sherry Pocknett , Mi’kmaq Storyteller  Jennifer Pictou ; Abenaki Jazz Artist   Mali Obamsawin ; Seneca Digital Artist/Technologist  Amelia Winger-Bearskin ; Penobscot Scholar  Darren Ranco ; Navajo Activist and Influencer  Allie Young ; and Penobscot author  Morgan Talty .
 
This grant connects to Indigenous Knowledge program goal 1b: To foster an environment conducive to knowledge production in Indigenous communities—one in which knowledge makers and keepers have access to and are supported by a robust infrastructure of organizations, programs, projects, and resources.