GATHERING POWER III (Indian market booth), 2024: A LIVING INSTALLATION with Laurie Steelink

GATHERING POWER III (Indian market booth), 2024, is a living multimedia installation assembled by artist/curator/cultural practitioner Laurie Steelink. The principal framework for installation are Steelink’s Indian market booth walls, originally constructed to present her work at SWAIA’s Santa Fe Indian Market and the Autry Museum’s American Indian Arts Marketplace. 

In 2022, Steelink re-configured her market booth to function as a mixed-media installation for the exhibition California Biennial: Pacific Gold at the Orange County Museum of Art and titled it GATHERING POWER (Indian market booth). In her 2023 exhibition Spirit is Alive Magic is Afoot at the Moss Arts Center at Virginia Tech University she re-configured the installation as GATHERING POWER II (Indian market booth). With each exhibition, the installation addressed through visual means and programming the First and existing Peoples of the surrounding land including the citizens of the Acjachemen Nation (California) and the Monacan Nation (Virgina). GATHERING POWER III (Indian market booth), 2024, will be reconfigured live over six weeks at Steelink’s live/work space Cornelius Projects. During that time the multimedia installation will expand physically and conceptually, as Steelink assembles new work while respectfully honoring the land she is situated on, the unceded territory of the Gabrielino-Tongva. Steelink invites conversation and considers the activity an integral layer to the overall work. A small scale/space-appropriate Indian Market with Native Artists will take place at Cornelius Projects, April 13 and 14, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

This exhibition/project was made possible through a grant from Arts United and the San Pedro Arts & Cultural District. The purpose of the San Pedro Arts and Cultural District Coalition, Arts United, is to create a framework to combine efforts to promote San Pedro’s authentic cultures, artists; including but not limited to visual, performing, digital artists, culture bearers, galleries and entertainment venues with a unified approach to advocacy, marketing and programming. The following San Pedro organizations also received funding: The San Pedro Ballet, The San Pedro Skatepark Association, Feed and be Fed, Freedom4U.

Multidisciplinary artist Laurie Steelink identifies as Akimel O’otham, and is a citizen of the Gila River Indian Community. She currently resides in the coastal community of San Pedro on the unceded territory of the Gabrielino-Tongva. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, she is part of a generation that was impacted by one of the last vestiges of the so-called U.S. Government’s active attempts at full hegemonic assimilation of Native Americans through the promotion of adoption programs of Native infants into white families.

GATHERING POWER III (Indian market booth), 2024, is on view to April 28 at Cornelius Projects, open Saturdays and  Sundays 11a.m. to 5 p.m., or by appointment.

Time: 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., April 13 and 14, and by appointment.

Cost: Free

Details: corneliusprojects.com

Venue: Cornelius Projects, 1417 S. Pacific Ave., San Pedro