Beyond Being Silenced: a view into indigenous art and undoing inequity

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AARP members and their guests have a chance this November to take in a film that explores the rebirth of coastal indigenous culture and an artist’s reconnection to heritage, tradition, and identity.

Join AARP Colorado for a showing of Beyond Being Silenced:  Gyaa Isdlaa November 13, 6:30 p.m., Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s (DMNS) Ricketson Theater. The film’s subject, artist and community elder Robert Davidson, will appear in person for an audience discussion and Q&A opportunity.

The film and audience discussion is just one part of this year’s Indigenous Film Festival at DMNS.

“Robert Davidson’s story is unfortunately emblematic of our country’s history of inequitable policymaking,” Dr. Marissa Volpe, director of outreach, said. “It shows that these injustices are not distant memories for indigenous communities.

“It is also a crucial story of cultural rebirth.”

The film screening and Q&A are free, open to the public, and do not require tickets.

Event details:

Beyond Being Silenced: Gyaa Isdlaa, directed by Charles Wilkinson
Wednesday, November 13, 2024
6:30 p.m.
Denver Museum of Nature & Science Ricketson Theater
2001 Colorado Blvd., Denver, CO 80205
Free; tickets not required
For more information on the venue, visit www.dmns.org.
 
Film Synopsis:

World famous Haida artist Robert Davidson was born in Hydaburg, Alaska at a time when the traditional law-giving social potlatch ceremony had been outlawed by governments seeking to prevent indigenous inhabitants from asserting title to their ancestral lands. Years later, the ban was lifted, but the damage had been done to younger generations of Haida and their connection to their heritage. Then in 1969, a young Davidson carved a totem pole for the village of Masset in Haida Gwaii, sparking a rebirth of coastal indigenous culture. Fifty years later, Davidson, along with other indigenous artists, began recreating tribal crests – totems which are fundament to a clan’s identity - gifting them to his brother clans at a special potlatch ceremony. (Bullfrog Films, 2023, 23 minutes).