New Native Voices: Candice Hopkins of Forge Project and Jeremy Dennis of Ma’s House in conversation

Tuesday, October 11 at 6 PM ET at Rough Draft Bar & Books, join Forge Project executive director and chief curator Candice Hopkins (Tlingit) and artist and Ma’s House founder Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock) for an intimate conversation on new New York–based initiatives focusing on Indigenous arts and culture, making space for Native kinship, and re-building community in the region.

Ma’s House Studio is a not-for-profit BIPOC-focused communal artist residency program in a family home originally built in the 1960s on the Shinnecock Indian Reservation on Long Island. Launched in 2020, Ma’s House holds an art studio, library, and hosts an array of art and history-based programs for tribal members and the broader local community.

Launched in 2021, Forge Project serves the social and cultural landscape of shared communities through a funded fellowship program for Indigenous culture workers, including those working in food and land justice, law and decolonial governance, and art. Forge hosts Native-led public education and events, a lending art collection focused on contemporary art by Indigenous artists, and a teaching farm and related programs developed in partnership with @skyhighfarmhudsonvalley.

Throughout the month of October, Rough Draft will also host a table of books for purchase on tribal histories, culture, resistance, and sovereignty selected by staff at Forge Project and Ma’s House.

Rough Draft is a community bar and bookstore located in uptown Kingston, New York, the ancestral homelands of the Esopus band of the Lenape tribe, who were forcibly displaced from the region through years of Anglo-European settlement. The uptown neighborhood is the site of the original stockade, constructed in 1658 by Dutch colonial governor Peter Stuyvesant to remove the Esopus from their tribal lands.

Space is limited and seating is first-come, first -served. Reservations are not required to attend this conversation, and reserving at ticket on Eventbrite does not guarantee a seat. (Reservations are still appreciated, however; they help us stay in touch and communicate changes if needed, and they give us an idea of how many people to expect.)

Complementary refreshments will be provided, and beverages will be available for purchase from the bar. The first 50 attendees will receive a free drink ticket.

About Candice Hopkins

Candice Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Red Hook, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explores the intersections of history, contemporary art, and indigeneity. She worked as senior curator for the 2019 and 2022 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art and was part of the curatorial team for the Canadian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma. She is co-curator of notable exhibitions including Art for New Understanding: Native Voices 1950s to Now; the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada; documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany; Sakahàn:

International Indigenous Art at the National Gallery of Canada and Close Encounters: The Next 500 Years in Winnipeg, MB. Her essays include “The Gilded Gaze: Wealth and Economies on the Colonial Frontier,” for the documenta 14 Reader, “Outlawed Social Life” for South as a State of Mind, and “The Appropriation Debates (or The Gallows of History)," for New Museum/MIT Press. In 2021 she was a recipient of the inaugural Noah Davis Prize, along with Thomas Lax and Jamillah James.

About Forge Project

Forge Project is a Native-led initiative centered on Indigenous art, decolonial education, and supporting leaders in culture, food security, and land justice. Located on the unceded homelands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok in so called New York State, Forge Project works to upend political and social systems formed through generations of settler colonialism.

Launched in 2021, Forge Project serves the social and cultural landscape of shared communities through a funded fellowship program for Indigenous culture workers, including those working in food and land justice, law and decolonial governance, and art. Forge hosts Native-led public education and events, a lending art collection focused on contemporary art by Indigenous artists, and a teaching farm and related programs developed in partnership with Sky High Farm.

Covid Protocols

Rough Draft is no longer requiring masks or social distancing indoors. Event attendees are encouraged to monitor the CDC's guidance based on current community risk level in Ulster County, and to decide what precautions to take and what level of risk is appropriate for them. The staff at Rough Draft, Forge Project, and Ma’s House ask that attendees use common sense when considering the health and safety of visitors. If you are feeling ill or exhibiting symptoms of COVID-19, please stay home.

Photo courtesy Thatcher Keats.