Have something you want to tell Christopher Columbus and think there is no way to get it off your chest? Tomahawk Greyeyes, Navajo, has just the thing, an artivist project that calls for letters to Columbus on Indigenous Peoples Day.
The Letters to Columbus will be gathered and some will be shared with the world online and some will be read and performed on YouTube.
Greyeyes calls this a “socially engaged art project about expressing the rage that comes from colonization.” He launched the project on October 12, 2015, gathered letters and took them to read aloud at the Columbus statue that faces the Pacific Ocean in San Francisco.
“You [Columbus] are being charged with genocide, ethnocide, colonization, slavery, rape of people and lands, destruction of the Mother Earth, stealing, maiming, and continued perpetration of lies,” reads Corrina Gould’s (Karkin and Chochoenyo Ohlone) letter to Columbus. “When found guilty your name will be stricken from all histories as a hero.”
Here the full letter, performed by Deezbaa Andrea O’hare, Navajo, below:
One-page letters are due by October 10, and can be submitted to letterstocolumbus@gmail.com.
Via ICTMN.
Crimson Clupeidae says
That’s a fantastic idea. Love it!