“Our Bodies, Our Lands” is a mixed media piece that incorporates repurposed T-shirts from Southern Paiute community protests (efforts to shut down Reid Gardner Coal Plant and protecting Desert National Wildlife Refuge). This piece explores the relationship of our bodies and the lands we identify with – connections of matriarchs to land protection, art as resilience, traditional storytelling, and our Too-Weep (Mother Earth). The painted and stained cotton mimic the geology of the lands. Black holes as the void left on the earth from atomic bombing and other military testing. Bombs that have scarred Too-Weep. We have a covenant with these lands, to protect them for those that protected us. Our Nuwu sing songs about the bighorn sheep of these lands, as it was foretold that the animal sacrificed itself for our peoples’ survival during famine. We have won fights to protect these lands and will continue to do so.

 

“I re-purposed two t-shirts from community protests surrounding Native land protection. The shirts represent lands, and a speckled dye was applied to mimic the beautiful sandstone features of Nuwuvi (Southern Paiute) desert lands. The shirts are tailored, stretched, and handsewn together with sinew. The shredded bundles represent sage and plant medicines, and colors signify happiness and hope. The open shirt collars expose two black voids, like voids in our deserts that show the harms upon the earth from military testing in Nevada, and harms on Indigenous women’s bodies. We stand up against the destruction of the environment and our people.” — Fawn