Confluence is a fully funded art criticism residency that brings together six Indigenous writers for two weeks of workshops, reflection, and collaboration to support them in their creative practice at any stage in their career. 

Continuing a series that has brought Indigenous writers, scholars and knowledge keepers together between continents and archipelagos, Confluence is convened by Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yaktitʸutitʸu yaktiłhini), Director of Indigenous Programs and Relationality at Forge Project, and Léuli Eshrāghi (Tagata Sāmoa), Curator of Indigenous Practices at the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal. 

We recognize Indigenous art as the foundation of all contemporary art, not simply as a facet of art history or historical context. Reaching beyond the inhibited memory of settlement with Indigenous artists, methods, and histories that assert longevity, innovation, and Native futurity, Confluence refuses the limited focus of a dominant art historical canon that situates the emergence of art at moments of colonial rupture in fractured geographies. Rather than reproducing narratives that situate Native intellectual, material, and artistic practice as objects of study, the cohort and faculty of Confluence contribute to the critical fields of Indigenous art, art history, and cultural sovereignty by speaking from, and between, our respective centers. 

Confluence grounds our work in the importance of gathering and exchange as a space of intellectual kinship, inviting an international cohort of residents to affirm the inherent inter-nationalism of ceremonial-political practices, kinships, tribes, and Native nations. 

By bringing together Indigenous art writers based in occupied lands, those impacted by global imperialism and other distinct colonial projects, residents can deepen comparative study in a distinctly relational way. The gathering will move at a pace that supports the importance of coming together in deep thought and critical exchange while balancing days of presentation and workshops with days of unstructured time to write, rest, or reflect. 

Participants in this residency will develop ideas and texts in kinship with an international roster of guest faculty belonging to Indigenous nations in North America and the Great Ocean. Taking place at Forge Project, located in the unceded homelands of the Moh-He-Con-Nuck (People of the Waters that are Never Still) in upstate New York, this is conceived as a retreat for emerging and established Indigenous art historians, critics, curators, and poets. 

Confluence offers fully funded travel, meals, and lodging for both faculty and residents, minimizing barriers to access, with the intention of shaping a cohort that represents writers in varied stages of their careers.

Faculty

Confluence is co-facilitated by Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yaktitʸutitʸu yaktiłhini), artist and Director of Indigenous Programs and Relationality, Forge Project; and Léuli Eshrāghi (Tagata Sāmoa), artist and Curator of Indigenous Practices, Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal.

Confluence is shaped with the intention of convening an international cohort of Native writers from across diverse spatial and cultural contexts from Indigenous communities throughout shared saltwater, continents, and archipelagoes. This is inclusive of writers and thinkers beyond the context of North America. 

We envision the reach of this residency as global and the cohort will be selected with attention to a collaborative whole. We recognize that there are multiple forms of community-affirmed relationships and Indigenous governance but remain accountable to lived practices of kinship, cultural belonging, and sovereignty. 

Recently discovered or distant Native ancestry, absent ongoing community relations, or claiming a community that does not claim an applicant does not qualify an individual as Indigenous for the purpose of this residency. 

As an extension of Forge Project’s commitment to support Native leadership in the arts and culture broadly, we choose to center applicants whose practice benefits collective or community-centered work.

To apply, please see guidelines below:

Applications should be submitted as a single PDF to [email protected] by Friday, April 25 at midnight EST, and include:

Confluence will be led and conducted in both English and a variety of Indigenous languages. We recognize the limitations that this presents and seek to expand our capacity to work across broader linguistic contexts in future iterations of this residency series.

The residency will take place in a variety of spaces throughout the Mahicannituck (Hudson River) Valley region surrounding Forge Project in Taghkanic, NY. Both lodging and shared workshops spaces are in a largely rural environment with local travel by personal vehicle, train routes from nearby towns to major cities, and provided, pre-arranged transportation.

Residents will be housed together in offsite accommodations at Sylvan Motor Lodge which allows each resident to have their own hotel room on the ground floor as well as access to a shared kitchen, living room space, and heated pool. Transportation in minivans between Forge, Sylvan Motor Lodge, other host sites and pre-arranged errand runs will be provided.

Forge is committed to increasing accessibility to our site, including physical accessibility. We welcome requests for accommodation and further questions—please reach out directly by emailing [email protected] or [email protected].

Confluence builds upon generative spaces like the gatherings Indigenous Art Journal (Banff, 2017) and Writing Relations, Making Futurities (2022), asserting art criticism as a practice of self-determination and calls for a reorientation from the art world as a center to our own centers of the world(s) as Indigenous people.

In March 2023, Forge Project and Momus, an online art publication, co-hosted Estuaries: An International Indigenous Art Criticism Residency, which considered how Indigenous histories can be strengthened in their expansion and transmission between generations and territories through visual, gestural, and verbal languages. This residency focused on river- and lake-shores, springs, and estuaries as storied places of local Indigenous nations as well as sites of reciprocity and entanglement between many living beings.

Residents in Estuaries (2023) include Drew Kahuʻāina Broderick (Kanaka ʻŌiwi), Sháńdíín Brown (Diné), Napatsi Iola Qiluyak Joy Folger (Nunavummiuq), Tristen Harwood (Ngalakan, Nunggubuyu), and Nadia Jackinsky-Sethi (Ninilchik, Alutiiq/Sugpiaq).

Faculty for Estuaries (2023) include: Jolene Rickard (Skarù:ręˀ), Candice Hopkins (Tłingít), Léuli Eshrāghi (Tagata Sāmoa), Sarah Biscarra Dilley (yaktitʸutitʸu yaktiłhini), Cathy Mattes (Michif), Maia Nuku (Ngai Tai), Pablo José Ramírez (Kʼicheʼ), Megan Tamati-Quennell (Te Āti Awa, Ngāi Tahu, Kāti Māmoe, Waitaha), and River Whittle (Caddo, Delaware). 

Estuaries was generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.