NDN Collective Announces 2022 Radical Imagination Cohort

Rapid City, SD – Today, NDN Collective announced the third Radical Imagination cohort who will receive grants intended to support Indigenous artists to imagine, design, and create projects proposing solutions to our most intractable societal problems.

The Radical Imagination grant application was released in March 2022, and was open to artists, culture bearers, and storytellers who are Indigenous to Turtle Island (U.S., Canada, Mexico) and surrounding island nations (Hawai’i, Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands).

This year’s cohort members focus on music, visual art, graphic design, illustration and animation, poetry, fiber art, storytelling, and more.

Members of the 2022 Radical Imagination cohort include:

Daniel Cespedes (She/he/they), Chamoru

Chad Martin (He/him), Kanaka Maoli/Hawaiian

Josué Rivas (He/him), Mexica and Otomí

Hubert Martínez Calleja (He/him), Mè'phàà (Tlapaneco)

Larry McNeil (He/him), Tlingit/Nisgáa

Marques Marzan (He/him), Hawaiian

Gabriela Spears-Rico (she/her), Pirinda and P'urhepecha

Cesar Hernandez Andres (he/him), Ngigua - Chocholteco

Hāwane Rios (she/her), Puʻukapu Waimea, Hawaiʻi Island

Miguel Ventura (he/him), Maya de la Península de Yucatán

“During this time of spiraling climate change and other forms of chaos in the world, the medicine of Indigenous arts is needed more than ever," shared Tina Kuckkahn (Ojibwe), Director of Grantmaking. “The prayers in our songs, stories, dances and visual arts touch hearts and inspire the kind of change that is urgently needed at this time.”

“The aspirations of our people, and our movement is amplified and made visible by artists and creatives,” said Gaby Strong, NDN Foundation Managing Director. “We have a lot to say and they speak through their expression – which can come in the form of a painting, a song, a poem, or a performance. Whatever form it takes, the imagination of our people is limitless, and it’s an honor to resource their prolific radical imagination.”

NDN Collective is an Indigenous-led organization dedicated to building Indigenous power. Through organizing, activism, philanthropy, grantmaking, capacity-building, and narrative change, we are creating sustainable solutions on Indigenous terms.