Joel Elgin. Athraigh Print Studio: Who are the people COVID – 19 is Killing in Your Neighborhood? Revisiting Navajo Nation Printmaking. Featured Artist: Nani Chacon

Joel Elgin, Athraigh Studio.

Printmaking in the time of COVID-19. Small Exhibitions: Who are the people COVID – 19 is Killing in Your Neighborhood?

Revisiting Navajo Nation Printmaking.

Featured Artist: Nani Chacon

Time to check back in with the Navajo Nation, the "Dineh" or "the People" to see how their battle with COVID – 19 is progressing.

A brief review of the Navajo Nation:

In 1864, "Kit" Carson and the United States federal government enacted a plan of ethnic cleansing and forced the relocation of the Navajo from their ancestral homelands to Fort Summer, a 40-square-mile reservation in eastern New Mexico. Years later the U.S.-Navajo Treaty of 1868 allowed the Navajo to return to only a small portion of their original homeland. I’m betting your history books didn’t inform you of the forced “Long Walk of the Navajo.”

Largest of all U.S. Indian reservations, covers 27,413 sq. miles

Only twelve Health Service facilities to serve over 350,000 citizens.

The facilities have only 28 ventilators.

In Mid May when the Athraigh Studio first featured Navajo printmakers the Navajo had suffered at least 3,392 cases of COVID – 19 and 119 known deaths.

“Cases on Navajo Nation peaked in May, with an average of 104 new cases per day. By July, that number dropped by half to about 48 new cases reported each day. In all, about 9,000 of the roughly 172,000 Navajo members living on and around the reservation have tested positive and more than 450 have died from the virus…. Local officials say Navajo Nation’s success in flattening the curve has been largely due to three things: widespread adherence to mask-wearing and social distancing, one of the strictest stay-at-home curfews in the country and an aggressive testing regime.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/navajo-nation-fears-second-covid-19-wave/index.html

“The coronavirus was so devastating on Navajo Nation in part, experts say, because of severely lacking infrastructure on the reservation. An estimated 30 percent of homes don’t have running water…”

https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/navajo-nation-fears-second-covid-19-wave/index.html

The Navajo have shovel ready plans to improve their infastructure and hope to use some of the $714 million in federal aid they received from the CARES Act. A deadline mandates the money be spent by Dec. 30 or the tribes risk have to send it back.

“Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez…wants to spend the money on expanding access to running water and electricity and providing broadband access and more affordable housing on the reservation — in effect addressing the infrastructure gaps that experts said contributed to COVID-19’s deadliness there…” https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/navajo-nation-fears-second-covid-19-wave/index.html

Spending the money by the end of the year is close to impossible, “… because most tribal land is held in trust, and technically owned by the federal government, development on many tribal lands is fraught with complications..”

https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/navajo-nation-fears-second-covid-19-wave/index.html

“…Nez conceded that tribal law also severely restricts infrastructure development on the reservation, but he also said there are concrete federal regulations that can and should be waived to allow for construction…” https://www.nbcnews.com/specials/navajo-nation-fears-second-covid-19-wave/index.html

The Navajo asked the Trump administration in June to waive some federal regulations so the tribe could fast-track development projects. It’s now August and they’ve heard nothing.

U.S. Rep. Tom O’Halleran, D-Ariz., introduced a bipartisan bill to extend the spending deadline for tribal governments to 2022.

https://www.law360.com/articles/1290993/bill-would-give-tribes-2-more-years-to-spend-covid-19-funds

So, the Navajo continue to fight COVID, fight the Trump administration to build infrastructure on a small portion of their original homeland and face the annual summer drought.

So, if we simply focus on water… Digging new water lines and building water towers on the reservation is difficult due to the federal and tribal regulations. Please consider supporting DigDeep.

“DigDeep”, a human rights nonprofit serves the 2.2 million+ Americans without the sinks, bathtubs or toilets has established The Navajo Water Project.

https://www.digdeep.org/our-works/navajo-water-project

To help bring awareness of the need for water. Athraigh studio is featuring the artwork of Nanibah “Nani” Chacon and the Navajo rock band Sihasin:

Take a Stand featuring Jones Benally

https://sihasin.com/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC52saarov2NK3WE8avqqM8Q

Nanibah “Nani” Chacon, is a Diné (Navajo) and Chicana artist who was born in Gallup, New Mexico and grew up both in Chinli, Arizona and Corrales, New Mexico. Her clan is To dich iini (bitter water) and born for Nakai Diné (Mexican/ Spanish people.)

“Agua es Vida” signed and numbered serigraph Print.

“honoring the historical and traditional connections we have with have with water, with the water that lives in us, is the water of centuries” Nanibah.

http://deserttriangle.blogspot.com/2017/11/nani-chacons-mural-to-print.html

Missing

Artist statement about the piece:

This piece is Titled “missing”, I created this piece to honor the lives and memory of unexplained murders and missing Indigenous women of North America.

https://singourriversred.wordpress.com/original-artwork-by-nani-chacon/