Territory Indigenous Art is Yatika Starr Fields’ vision for increasing visibility of Indigenous arts in Tulsa, Okla., which he notes as historic Indian Territory. Sovereign Futures, an initiative from the University of Tulsa focused on supporting Black and Indigenous sovereignty, hosted their opening reception at Fields’ Indigenous space in a temporary location in Downtown Tulsa.
In a weekend of curated events provoking dialogues on sovereignty, Fields co-curated an exhibition with Allison Glenn of Sovereign Futures. Entitled “We Have Arrived,” the exhibition was located across from an Indigenous mural by Nani Chacon that Fields had curated in 2020, and also near the Indian Clinic and in a location that Territory Indigenous Art had never utilized before.
In the Sovereign Futures iteration of Territory Indigenous Art, artists, curators and attendees from in and beyond Oklahoma witnessed an example of what an Indigenous and community art space in Tulsa could hold. In concert as well as independent of Sovereign Futures, Territory Indigenous Art is working with collaborators to turn that vision for an Indigenous art and community space into a building.
Visioning for Territory Indigenous Art began when Fields moved back from the East Coast to witness the stark absence of Indigenous representation—and representation of artists of color, generally—in the city’s arts. What representation he did see in Tulsa didn’t reflect its true community identity, but instead a whitewashed rendering actively erasing Indigenous artists and those of color, he said. And as an artist and muralist who had traveled the world and worked with diverse communities, Fields knew what mentorship could do for a person, and wanted that for Tulsa.
He thought of an art and community space he’d encountered in Minneapolis, Minn.: All My Relations Gallery, and the associated Powwow Grounds Coffee, where he knew Indigenous mentorship and empowerment took place in many forms. As Fields undertook community projects—from a plan for Indigenous murals, to dialogues on Indigenous activism facilitated in collaboration with his mother, Anita Fields—the artists increasingly saw the need for such a space. This spring, Sovereign Futures provided the next step toward resourcing such a space.
The Sovereign Futures exhibition, “We Have Arrived,” featured works by Indigenous and Black artists as well as other artists of color. A painting by José Luis Vargas, “Ya llegamos (We have arrived),” inspired the exhibition’s title. Vargas was present at the exhibition, and traveled from his home in San Juan, Puerto Rico to be there. They met while Fields was traveling with his partner in Puerto Rico, and the Osage artist shared about Territory and associated residency opportunities. To that, Vargas replied, “I need it. You don’t know how much I need it.”
At the opening of “We Have Arrived,” Vargas was contemplating Tulsa. “Here, you have the same power structures from centuries who are still here and it’s like a scratched record. Being here in the past two days, it’s just amazing. It’s like, what does it mean to be here? And that’s the question. … That is the thing about being present in a place like Tulsa. The thing is about making the invisible visible.”
Fields himself was feeling good on opening night. “Words can’t describe it,” he said. “I mean, a lot of people traveled to experience this.” He had prepared the warehouse space for the exhibition with a week-and-a-half of painting and 60 gallons of paint. It was power-washed, emptied of trash and then, once installed with art, filled with artists and curators from New York City where Fields had lived, as well as from other locations internationally.
In addition to far-reaching visitors, attendees included Fields’ own mother, his partner and members of his family, who all gathered near the end of the reception to watch Tulsa artist Ashanti Chaplin unveil a 13-foot-tall obelisk made of clay from Oklahoma’s 13 remaining all-Black towns. Chaplin unveiled her obelisk, “Dust to Dirge: An Earth Elegy” in a prayerful walk with music composed with her collaborator Gabriel Royal. Fields’ grandmother Carmelita Luttrell watched in awe and afterwards remarked, “it’s awesome.”
Sterlin Harjo, a longtime proponent of Tulsa, art in Tulsa, “and especially Native and Indigenous art in Tulsa,” said that there was a time when there weren’t shows like this. “And now,” he said, “it feels like they’re exploding.” The day before, during opening remarks for Sovereign Futures, Fields spoke on the need to uplift and empower suppressed voices in Tulsa, including Indigenous and Black voices. In his vision, empowerment includes holistic approaches to mentorship, rather than solely supporting the community through arts.
“Indigenous people carry more than one initiative,” he said in an interview leading up to Sovereign Futures. “We’re not just artists, we’re also spokespeople, we’re also writers, we’re also poets, we’re dancers, we’re storytellers. We do things different.” Territory Indigenous Art is intended to be a space where Indigenous people can feel safe, and find community in all those roles. It will not only have gallery space and a coffee shop, but also a kitchen, residency space, and more, to support the needs of the community and inspire them to follow their dreams.
Sovereign Futures contained more than support for strict visual arts, and on the morning following the opening exhibition, two chartered buses full of attendees traveled to Harvest Land, where Fields and Glenn had planned an event around food sovereignty.
Fields introduced Chef Ben Jacobs of Tocabe, and remarked on the significance of their location. “It’s oftentimes hard to get the community to come out and engage with us [in Indigenous communities], because there’s no incentive to, or they don’t know anyone, or it takes up their busy lives and what we have to do,” he said. “Knowing that, it’s always been a want and desire to have an opportunity to bring community out to this space. … interaction with an Indigenous community, Indigenous food, Indigenous conversations.”
Principal Chief Geoffrey Standing Bear was present at the dinner, and as part of a panel on food sovereignty, he told the story of how Harvest Land was created in response to food insecurity during the pandemic. After the event, Standing Bear reflected that the dialogue had inspired him to further reflect about nuances between food security and food sovereignty. “It was really encouraging to see that so many people are talking about food security and sovereignty. … I learned a lot about that view and the political ramifications of not having food security,” he said.
Interconnections between food, sovereignty and art are part of Sovereign Futures’ strategy to support Black and Indigenous representation and sovereignty in Tulsa—a strategy which Fields said he did not expect to be perfect, or to get it all right, as he commented during opening remarks for the weekend of events.
Such events centered around dialogue and art with Sovereign Futures are expected to continue; future gatherings might engage the Cherokee and Muscogee Nations, which did not have a presence in the April events beyond individual artists, though Glenn did note that the nations’ principal chiefs had been invited, and simply could not attend due to scheduling conflicts.
All three tribes, Osage, Cherokee and Muscogee—as well as Tulsa’s Greenwood and Oklahoma’s historic Black towns—are expected to help Sovereign Futures develop conversation toward visibility and sovereignty in Tulsa. Territory Indigenous Art will be a big part of that, and as part of their initiatives toward resourcing, they are currently on the lookout for funders.
