An Infected Sunset by Demian DinéYazhi—Reading Event with Lucas de Lima, Jess X Snow, and El Roy Red

• Art/Photo
• Books & Literature
• Free
• LGBTQ+

Demian DinéYazhi ́performs his work AN INFECTED SUNSET, a risograph-printed work published by Pur Dubois Press. The event will include additional readings from Lucas de Lima, Jess X Snow, and El Roy Red.

Join the event on Facebook here

AN INFECTED SUNSETis an ekphrastic long-form prose poem first conceived in August 2016 in the wake of the Orlando nightclub shooting, police killings of unarmed Black men, and in the midst of the Standing Rock #NoDAPL Resistance. During the writing of the poem the settler colonial nation-state elected the 45th president of this colonized country, which revealed a sudden revival of extreme white supremacist nationalism. As the social and political landscape evolved, the LIBERATED POEM emerged as an offering to Indigenous communities and landscapes striving for a decolonial and sovereign future emancipated from white supremacist capitalist hetero-patriarchal settler colonial trauma drama. This performance poem is a reflection on queer sex, survival/death politics, indigenous identity, settler and heteronormative romanticism, environmental injustice, and the importance of honoring community.

Demian DinéYazhi ́ (born 1983) is an Indigenous Diné transdisciplinary artist born to the clans Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá (Zuni Clan Water’s Edge) & Tódích’íí’nii (Bitter Water). Growing up in the colonized border town of Gallup, New Mexico, the evolution of DinéYazhi ́’s work has been influenced by his ancestral ties to traditional Diné culture and ceremony, matrilineal upbringing, the sacredness of land, and the importance of intergenerational knowledge. Through research, mining community archives, and social collaboration and activism, DinéYazhi ́ highlights the intersections of Radical Indigenous Queer Feminist identity and political ideology while challenging the white noise of the contemporary art movement. They have recently exhibited at Whitney Museum of American Art (2018), Henry Art Gallery (2018), Pioneer Works (2018), CANADA, NY (2017); and UNM-Gallup Ingham Chapman Gallery (2016).

DinéYazhi ́ is the founder of the Indigenous artist/activist initiative, R.I.S.E.: Radical Indigenous Survivance & Empowerment. DinéYazhi ́ also serves as co-editor of Locusts: A Post-Queer Nation Zine. They are the recipient of the Henry Art Museum’s Brink Award (2017) and is a Hallie Ford Fellow in the Visual Arts (2018). @heterogeneoushomosexual