Contributors to A Lenapehoking Anthology explore the personal journeys of people seeking welcome in their ancestral homeland while pushing back against their erasure. Before New York City, there was Lenapehoking, the ancestral land of the Lenape people. Forcibly displaced by European settlers, their land was stolen to create settler states. Now, in an act of reclamation, A Lenapehoking Anthology, recently published by the Lenape Center and the Brooklyn Public Library, contends with subjects ranging from the myth of the purchase of Manhattan to the self-curation of indigenous art and culture. Lenape Center co-founders and co-directors Joe Baker, Curtis Zunigha, and Hadrien Coumans will join each other in conversation. About the Speakers Joe Baker is an artist, educator, curator and activist who has been working in the field of Native Arts for the past 30 years. He is an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and co-founder executive director of Lenape Center in Manhattan. He serves as a board member for The Endangered Language Fund, Yale University and on the Advisory Committee for the National Public Art Consortium, New York and cultural advisor for the new CBS series Ghosts. Baker has guided in his capacity as executive director for Lenape Center partnerships with the Metropolitan Museum of Art (his work is currently on exhibit there), Brooklyn Museum of Art, American Ballet Theater, Moulin Rouge on Broadway, The Whitney Museum of Art, and others. Hadrien Coumans is co-founder and co-director of Lenape Center, and an adopted member of the WhiteTurkey-Fugate family. Curtis Zunigha is co-founder and co-director of The Lenape Center, based in New York City, which promotes the history and culture of the Lenape people (also known as Delaware Indians) through the arts, humanities, social identity, and environmental activism. His multimedia experience includes writing, producing, directing, acting, narrating, and composing/performing traditional music. Zunigha is an accomplished public speaker, workshop facilitator, and panel moderator. He is known throughout Indian Country as a master of ceremonies at cultural performances and event.
New York City, NY; NYC