Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A presentation on water advocacy and rethinking environmental design systems for preservation.
Explore water advocacy and rethinking environmental design systems for preservation with Two-Spirit poet, artist, and activist Reverend Houston Cypress (Otter Clan of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida), canoe maker Daniel Tommie (Seminole Tribe of Florida), water rights activist Betty Osceola (Panther Clan of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida) and Zarith Pineda, Founder & Executive Director of New York–based organization Territorial Empathy.
Featured in the Triennial installation “Ebb + Flow,” Cypress, Tommie, and Osceola have dedicated their lives to fore fronting learnings from the Ancestral past. The installation, organized by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), assembles collective stories and sounds from the Everglades wetlands of South Florida. The project honors the communities and various ecosystems of this region, considering a worldview that expands beyond the human era. Similarly, in the South Bronx, Pineda just launched a project called H.earth, a garden sanctuary for community care and activism, mutual aid, and cultural preservation.
This program was moderated by Triennial co-curator Alexandra Cunningham Cameron and is being held as part of the Making Home Saturday Series: Building Home, a day-long, multi-format public program and celebration taking place across the museum’s galleries and garden involving several Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial designers and architects. Through food, song, storytelling, and conversation, the participants will share the cultural perspectives, models of environmental advocacy, and systems of Indigenous building they explore in their Making Home commissions.
A presentation on water advocacy and rethinking environmental design systems for preservation.
Explore water advocacy and rethinking environmental design systems for preservation with Two-Spirit poet, artist, and activist Reverend Houston Cypress (Otter Clan of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida), canoe maker Daniel Tommie (Seminole Tribe of Florida), water rights activist Betty Osceola (Panther Clan of the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida) and Zarith Pineda, Founder & Executive Director of New York–based organization Territorial Empathy.
Featured in the Triennial installation “Ebb + Flow,” Cypress, Tommie, and Osceola have dedicated their lives to fore fronting learnings from the Ancestral past. The installation, organized by Artists in Residence in Everglades (AIRIE), assembles collective stories and sounds from the Everglades wetlands of South Florida. The project honors the communities and various ecosystems of this region, considering a worldview that expands beyond the human era. Similarly, in the South Bronx, Pineda just launched a project called H.earth, a garden sanctuary for community care and activism, mutual aid, and cultural preservation.
This program was moderated by Triennial co-curator Alexandra Cunningham Cameron and is being held as part of the Making Home Saturday Series: Building Home, a day-long, multi-format public program and celebration taking place across the museum’s galleries and garden involving several Making Home—Smithsonian Design Triennial designers and architects. Through food, song, storytelling, and conversation, the participants will share the cultural perspectives, models of environmental advocacy, and systems of Indigenous building they explore in their Making Home commissions.
