Exploring Native Symbolism and Allyship Summit: Importance of Native Representation in the New Mexico Artistic Community
Opportunity for Albuquerque artists, creatives, arts administrators, and interested community members.
Exploring Native Symbolism and Allyship Summit
Importance of Native Representation in the New Mexico Artistic Community
Deadline for Interest Form: Thursday, April 24, 2025 at 4:59 p.m.
Submit Your Interest Form Here
The City of Albuquerque Department of Arts & Culture and Public Art Urban Enhancement Division invite artists, artisans, creatives, arts administrators, and interested community members to the in-person Exploring Native Symbolism and Allyship Summit!
When: Saturday, May 3, 2025 from 9:30 am to 3:00 pm
Where: Albuquerque, New Mexico (location details will be shared with attendees)
*Light breakfast refreshments and lunch will be provided.
Please note that space is limited. Priority will be given to attendees that can attend the entire summit. The summit is free and open to all artists, artisans, creatives, arts administrators, and interested community members.
Submit your interest in attending the summit by Thursday, April 24, 2025 at 4:59 p.m.
At the Exploring Native Symbolism and Allyship Summit:
The summit will include a combination of presentations, panel discussion, and opportunities for attendees to discuss and ask questions. Topics that will be covered include:
- Art Appropriation versus Appreciation
- Difficult Truths: Through an Indigenous Lens
- Appropriation of the Zia Sun Symbol
- Land Acknowledgements
Presenter and Panelist Bios
April Hale, Owner/President A.Hale PR, Inc.
(Diné/Navajo)
LinkedIn: @ahalepr
April Hale is the owner of A.Hale PR, Inc., a Native American woman-owned small business, providing quality strategic communications, public and media relations, content creation, public education and awareness campaign strategy and outreach, social media messaging, community engagement, website information architecture, event planning, and tribal/DEI consultation for tribes, tribal organizations, and non-Native agencies or entities working in Indian Country. A.Hale PR takes a culturally-sensitive and culturally-appropriate approach with an understanding of Indian Country, tribal governments, tribal sovereignty, federal trust responsibility, and American Indian and Alaska Native communities. Ms. Hale has over 15 years of experience in communications, public relations, and advocacy that includes campaigns on Covid-19, Native Vote, Indian Country Counts (Census), tribal housing legislation, tribal water rights, and tribal public health programs. Prior to establishing A.Hale PR, Ms. Hale worked in Washington, DC with the National Congress of American Indians, National American Indian Housing Council, National Indian Health Board, the Indian Health Service headquarters, and the Notah Begay III Foundation in New Mexico, respectively. A.Hale PR is a member agency of The Change Agencies, a national network of independently-owned public relations firms focused on inclusive and authentic communications to multicultural and LGBTQ communities. Ms. Hale is President-Elect of the New Mexico Chapter PRSA, Vice Chair of the Dinéh Chamber of Commerce, and a member of the American Indian Chamber of Commerce of New Mexico and Coalition to Stop Violence Against Native Women. In November 2023, Ms. Hale received the NM PRSA Chapter Member of the Year award. Ms. Hale is a citizen of the Diné (Navajo) Nation from Iyanbito, New Mexico. Her clans are Water’s Edge (Tábąąhá), Salt (Ashįįhí), Towering House (Kinyaa’áanii), and Bitter Water (Tó’dich’ii’níí).
Dr. Bernadine Hernández
Dr. Bernadine Hernández is an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of New Mexico. She specializes in transnational feminism and sexual economies of the US-Mexico borderlands, along with American Literary Studies and Empire, border and migration history, Marxist theory, and Chicana/Latina Literature and Sexualities. Dr. Hernández’s 2022 book Border Bodies: Racialized Sexuality, Sexual Capital, and Violence in the Nineteenth Century Borderlands (UNC Press) has won the 2024 NACCS (National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies) Book of the Year Award, the 2024 AAHHE (American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education) Book of the Year Award, and the 2023 Honorable Mention for the NWSA (National Women’s Studies Association) Gloría Anzaldúa Book Award. She is also the co-editor of the first edited collection on Ana Castillo titled New Transnational Chicanx Perspectives on Ana Castillo, published with University of Pittsburg Press in Spring 2021. Her other publications appear in Comparative Literature and Culture, Transgender Studies Quarterly, Women’s Studies Quarterly, among others.
She is also a public facing scholar and works with the artist and writer collective fronteristxs, a collective of artists and writers in New Mexico working to end migrant detention and abolish the prison industrial complex through creative activism. Fronteristxs provides free political education for community and youth throughout New Mexico on transformative justice and abolition. She sits on the City of Albuquerque Public Arts Board and the Working Classroom Board.
Dillon Shije
Dillon Shije has joined the City of Albuquerque, filling a critical role in the Office of Equity and Inclusion (OEI) as a deputy director. Dillon joined the City as a Councilman and Tribal Leader from the Pueblo of Zia and a Founding Board Member of the Pueblo Development Commission NGO. Dillon is a dedicated advocate for Indigenous rights, environmental justice, and the advancement of Native Health. He is passionate about furthering the perspectives of the Pueblo Peoples of New Mexico across global Indigenous issues.
Previous to the City of Albuquerque, Dillon worked as a State Platforms and Resolutions Committee (SPARC) Member for the Democratic Party of New Mexico, a Native American Senate Central Committee (SCC) Member, and was a Health Advisor to 20 Pueblo Sovereign Nations of New Mexico and Texas. Before his advocacy work, Dillon was a professional runner and Division I Cross Country National Champion.
Dillon is a graduate of the Leadership New Mexico’s Connect Program, ASU’s Indigenous Leadership Institute, has dual Bachelor’s degrees in History and Integrative Physiology from the University of Colorado - Boulder, and a Pre-Med Post Baccalaureate from the University of Arizona and the University of New Mexico. Additionally, Dillon is recognized as an Aspen Institute Future Climate Leader and a Schusterman Philanthropies Reality Sports Fellow.
Lloyd Lee, Ph.D.
Lloyd L. Lee, Ph.D. is an enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation. He is Kiyaa’áanii (Towering House people), born for Tłááschíí (Red Cheeks people). His maternal grandfather’s clan is Áshįįhí (Salt clan) and his paternal grandfather’s clan is Tábąąhá (Water’s Edge people).
He is Professor and Chair of the Department of Native American Studies and Director of the Center for Regional Studies at the University of New Mexico, and editor of the Wicazo Sa Review journal. He is also co-editor with Wendy Shelly Greyeyes, Ph.D. of the University of New Mexico (UNM) Press Book Series Studies in Indigenous Community Building.
Questions
Questions about the Exploring Native Symbolism and Allyship Summit may be directed to the Albuquerque Public Art Program: 505-768-3566 or by email at [email protected].