NDN Collective Announces 2023-2025 Radical Imagination Cohort

For Immediate Release: December 7, 2023

Rapid City, SD – Today, NDN Collective announced the fourth Radical Imagination cohort who will receive grants intended to support Indigenous artists, artist partnerships/cooperatives and small nonprofits to imagine, design and create projects that propose solutions to our most intractable societal problems.

The Radical Imagination grant application was released in February 2023, 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, Boriken/Puerto Rico, American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the U.S. Virgin Islands).

“We learned from previous cohorts that many of the artists’ projects were often just gaining momentum toward the end of their one year grant,” shared Tina Kuckkahn, (Ojibwe) Associate Director of NDN Collective’s Foundation. “We saw how important it was to provide longer-term investment into the work and energy of our most creative people. We are honored to support the artistic journeys of these amazing artists who are the first to receive two-year, $100,000 Radical Imagination grants.”

“Meeting this year’s cohort, I can feel their creative power,” said Helen Aldana, Program Officer at NDN Collective. “These are artists who are protecting and creating ancestral memory, dismantling limiting structures, and amplifying the wisdom of future generations. I am honored to support these artists’ radical imagination that embraces the past and future, as they build hope and beauty in all things present.”

This year’s cohort members focus on music, visual art, performance art, photography, filmmaking, storytelling, installations, fiber arts and more.

Members of the 2023-2025 Radical Imagination cohort include:

Anahí Haizel de la Cruz Martín (She/Her/ella/la), Mujer Maya

Tiare Ribeaux (She/Her/ella/la, They/Them/élle/le), Kānaka Maoli/Kānaka ‘Ōiwi

Ursala Hudson (Kadusné) (She/Her/ella/la), Tlingit, Filipina, Norwegian, German, English

April Stone (She/Her/ella/la), Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe)

Jeneda Benally (She/Her/ella/la), Diné

RYAN! Feddersen (She/Her/ella/la), Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation

Dana Warrington (He/Him/él/lo), Menominee/ Prairie Band Potawatomi

Samantha Harrison (She/Her/ella/la), Native Village of Kotzebue

Darrah Blackwater (She/Her/ella/la), Diné/Navajo

Emilio Wawatie (He/Him/él/lo), Algonquins of Barrier lake and Kitigan Zibi Anishnabeg

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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.