Land Acknowledgement
Writers Theatre serves as a gathering place for people to come together and, through the art of theatre, witness and celebrate the many stories of humanity. The land on which we gather has a story too, one that isn’t told nearly often enough.
Writers Theatre sits on Native land. Our theatre and offices reside on the traditional homelands of the people of the Council of Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Potawatomi and Odawa. Other tribes including the Menominee, Miami and Ho-Chunk nations also call this area home. This land continues to be a site of gathering and healing for more than a dozen other Tribal Nations and remains home to over 100,000 tribal members in the state of Illinois.
Land acknowledgments are common practice in New Zealand, Australia and Canada, and are becoming more widespread in the United States. To recognize the land is an expression of gratitude and appreciation to those whose territory we reside on, and a way of honoring the Indigenous people who have been living and working on the land from time immemorial.
Writers Theatre is striving towards greater equity, justice, inclusion and belonging at our theatre. To learn more about the history of Indigenous peoples who have lived or live near Chicago, we encourage you to explore the websites of the tribal nations.
Ojibwe
Menominee
Miami Nation
Chicago-area Community Resources
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The Mitchell Museum of the American Indian in Evanston features the art, history, and culture of Native American and First Nation peoples from throughout the United States and Canada.
- The American Indian Center of Chicago (AIC) was established in 1953 with the mission to help Native families cope with the transition from reservation to urban life. Today, AIC serves Chicago with a multitude of comprehensive, community-centered programs.
- The Chi-Nations Youth Council is a Native Youth-led organization with the mission to create safe space through arts, activism and education. The First Nations Garden is a Chi-Nations initiative in the Albany Park Neighborhood that serves as a healing space of Chicago’s First Nations communities and promotes public knowledge of Chicago’s Indigenous landscape and ecosystem.
- First Nations Film and Video Festival runs two annual film festivals at venues across the Chicago area in May and November. The film festival celebrates the work of Indigenous/Native American filmmakers from the United States, Canada, Central and South America and Mexico.
- Geoffrey Baer highlights the lasting impact of Native tribes on the city of Chicago and the surrounding area in An Exploration of Native American History in Chicago for WTTW.
Learn More about Land Acknowledgment Practice
- The U.S. Department of Arts and Culture’s Guide to Honoring Native Land offers context about Land Acknowledgment practice and provides resources to help transform acknowledgment into action.
- A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgment by the Native Governance Center provides step-by-step tips for creating an indigenous land acknowledgment statement.
Read
- Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer – This essay collection by Robin Wall Kimmerer, an enrolled member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, shares stories that weave together lessons learned from the scientific method, traditional stories and the environment.
- The Night Watchman by Louise Erdrich – Winner of the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, The Night Watchman draws inspiration from the author’s grandfather who worked as a night watchman and activist fighting against legislation that removed federal recognition of Tribal Nations in the 1950s.
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