LANDBACK.Art

Cannupa Hanska Luger, Future Ancestral Technologies: We Survive You (billboard), in Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Hunkpapa, and Cheyenne land (Mandan, ND), 2021. Image copyright Justin Deegan.

What it was: a billboard campaign across Turtle Island (North America) that featured 20+ Native and Indigenous artists and their allies advancing the Land Back Movement.

What we did:

Campaign advising, strategy, and management
Oversaw video, copy, and reward buildout
Wrote and copyedit campaign copy and comms
Developed launch and outreach strategy
Managed fulfillment center to distribute 350 rewards

What we got:

$51,825 pledged across 777 backers.
20+ billboards placed for four weeks during Native American Heritage Month.
Searchable map outlining locations, artists, and credits for each billboard.

Press:

Hyperallergic, “Indigenous Artists Voice Support for Land Restitution in New Billboard Campaign,” 2021.
Memphis Flyer, “Campaign Launched to Place Billboards in Communities Fighting for Indigenous Rights,” 2021.
Included in T. J. Demos, Radical Futurisms (Sternberg Press, 224 pages, ISBN 978-3-95679-527-5), 2023.

A network of three organizations—NDN Collective, For Freedoms, and Indígena—invited over 20 Indigenous artists, community members, and their allies to illustrate their answer to “What does land back mean to you?” Billboards were placed in communities currently fighting for Indigenous rights and the protection of Native land, working in conversation with Indigenous, Native, and First Nation tribes whose ancestral homes exist on each billbaord’s location.

LANDBACK.Art advanced the Land Back Movement—the movement to put Indigenous lands back into Indigenous hands. LANDBACK is the return of Duluwat Island to the Wiyot Tribe. LANDBACK is the Esselen Tribe reclaiming 1,200 acres of their ancestral homelands in Big Sur. LANDBACK is the centuries-long fight to reclaim the Black Hills and Mount Rushmore to their original caretaker.

Indigenous people make up less than 5% of the global population but protect 80% of the earth’s biodiversity. That’s why Indigenous people must lead the way if we are to protect the world from further destruction.

Votan Henriquez, National Park Lands Back (billboard), in Pueblo and Tiwa land (Edgewood, NM), 2021. Photo copyright. Roberto E. Rosales.

Billboard designed by X in Peoria, Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Myaamia, Kiikaapoi (Kickapoo), Kaskaskia, and Bodwéwadmi (Potawatomi) land (Harvey, IL), 2021. Image copyright Mike Rivera.

Josué Rivas x Brian Prince, The Borders Crossed Us (billboard), in Tongva (Gabrieleno), Kizh (Gabrieleno), and Acjachemen (Juaneño) land (Anaheim, CA), 2021. Image copyright Tekpatl Kuauhtzin.

River Whittle, the earth needs its people (billboard), in Apache territory (Alamogordo, NM), 2021. Image copyright Roberto E. Rosales.

June 2021-March 2023

Code 21-08