Join Stand for an evening of powerful words and music by regional artists working at the intersection of culture, place, and activism.  Following the performance, a reception will be held at the Sylvia Center for the Arts, where the "Stand & Resist" visual arts exhibit will be displayed from 3/29 to 4/7. Information on current threats to the Salish Sea, how you can stand and resist, and how we can work together to protect our home, will be available at the reception.

A little about about the artists:

Imani Sims is a bourbon loving, stiletto wearing, Seattle native who spun her first performance poem at the age of fourteen.  She believes in the inherent magic within women and the natural way we manifest our own healing through performance art. She is a Central District Forum for Arts and Ideas curator and board member for Earth Pearl Collective.  Her book (A)LIVE HEART is available on Sibling Rivalry Press.

A 2016 Jack Straw Fellow, Artist Trust Fellow, and nominee for a Stranger Genius Award, Robert Lashley has had poems published in such journals as Feminete, Seattle Review Of Books,  NAILED, Drunk In a Midnight Choir, and The Cascadia Review. His work was also featured in Many Trails To The Summit, an anthology of Northwest form and Lyric poetry. His full-length book: THE HOMEBOY SONGS, was published by Small Doggies press in April 2014. His new book, UP SOUTH, will be out in March 2017.

Rena Priest is a writer, poet, and concerned citizen. She is a Lummi tribal member and was raised in a subterranean homesick matriarchy. Her chapbook, PATRIARCHY BLUES, will be released on MoonPath Press this summer. Rena holds an MFA in Writing from Sarah Lawrence College and has taught various subjects in writing, contemporary American Indian issues and literature at Northwest Indian College, Western Washington University, and Fairhaven College. She was active in the coal train resistance, and continues in efforts to strengthen community through participation in local arts and culture. She would love nothing more than to see the Salish Sea protected and restored in honor of treaty rights and the inherent rights of the people to enjoy its beauty and abundance.

Nahaan’s Indigenous lineage is of the Tlingit, Inupiaq of Alaska and Paiute of California. He focuses exclusively on working within the spirit and design style of the Northwest Coast practices and customs of ceremonial tattooing, wood carving, silver jewlery carving, painting and custom designing of regalia and tattoos. Nahaan emulates the strong visual and oral storytelling that has been handed down from generation to generation, it’s the foundation of his work, way of living and teaching of his cultural traditions. Within the realms of language arts and expression, Nahaan teaches the Tlingit language through traditional clan songs, dances and open community classes. He is the spokesperson for the Náakw Dancers, a group he started in Seattle, Washington in 2014, perpetuate the rich expressions of the Pacific Northwests Native population. Nahaan is also a spoken word poet and co-founded “Woosh Kinaadeiyeí” poetry slam in Juneau, Alaska in 2010 which has since grown into a thriving and creative mainstay in the capitol city. He focuses on the aspects of community empowerment and self mastery through the methods of decolonization indigenization and activism.

Seattle Stranger Genius Award winner Tracy Rector (Seminole/Choctaw) is the Executive Director and Co-founder of Longhouse Media, an indigenous media arts organization that nurtures the development of Native artists. Her feature-length documentary, CLEARWATER, follows the annual Indigenous canoe journey through the Salish Sea as a means of exploring this place and its history.   Tracy’s films have  been broadcast on PBS, National Geographic, Independent Lens and has screened widely on the  international film circuit (including Cannes). She is the recipient of the Horace Mann Award, Red Cross Real Heroes Recognition, the National Media Literacy Award and is a current Sundance Native Lab Fellow and Tribeca All Access Grantee.

Best known for his global comedy hit  COWS WITH GUNS which went to #2 on Australia’s Country Charts and remained on Ireland’s Top 40 for six months, Dana Lyons is a singer, guitarist and recording artist who has toured the world for thirty years promoting environmental and social justice causes. Dana has toured in 48 of the 50 American states, throughout Australia, and across Ireland, England, New Zealand, Canada, Kazahkstan, Patagonia and Siberia. Dana performs at festivals ranging from Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young, to the Harley Davidson Festival in Sturgis, South Dakota. His policy of “I’ll play anywhere once” has landed Dana gigs on a tropical island in the Great Barrier Reef, an Irish Pub in Beijing and the Hanford Nuclear Waste Dump in his home state of Washington. 

Julie Trimingham is a writer and filmmaker. Her fictional travelogue chapbook, WAY ELSEWHERE, was released in May 2016 by The Lettered Streets Press. She regularly tells stories at The Moth in Seattle and writes essays for  Numéro Cinq magazine. She devoted a few years to fighting fossil fuel exports in the Salish Sea, and established the website www.coaltrainfacts.org as a means of disseminating accurate, verifiable, clear information; she is also a producer on Tracy’s film CLEARWATER. Gina B. Nahai blurbed Julie’s first book, saying, “A novel of quiet passion and rare beauty, MOCKINGBIRD is a testament to the power of pure, uncluttered language—a confluence of feelings and physicality that will draw you back, line after graceful, memorable, line.” About her writing, novelist/editor Douglas Glover has said, “Her tendency is to astonish with invention.”