Generational Wealth (Abundance) | Forge Project x OPEN ROOM
Panels
- OPEN ROOM
- Thursday, February 26 | 7-9pm
Join us for a panel discussion on wealth redistribution as part of Forge Project’s year-long installation and residency in Performance Space New York’s OPEN ROOM.
J. Kae Good Bear (Diné / Mandan / Hidatsa) will moderate a conversation between Betsy Richards (Cherokee), Danyelle Means (Oglala Lakota), and Dr. Jessa Rae Growing Thunder (Fort Peck Assiniboine/Sioux) about sustainable and tangible wealth redistribution in practice and response strategies that build Native futures in art and culture.
In the first two years as a nonprofit, Forge Project has worked hard to craft and embody fundraising values that disrupt extractive philanthropic norms and expectations of performance. This panel will operate within that framework, in which resources and responsibilities are intertwined, and wealth is defined expansively.
About the Panelists:
J. Kae is the Program Associate for Arts & Culture at the Mellon Foundation and a multidisciplinary artist and cultural worker operating at the intersection of arts, culture and Indigenous knowledge across western and Indigenous traditional art forms. Formerly she served as Conservation Cultural Liaison at the Field Museum in Chicago where she built partnerships with over 40 organizations and co-developed a fellowship program for emerging museum professionals focusing on the care of Indigenous collections, collaborative care and knowledge exchange between museums and Indigenous diplomats. She was raised on the Navajo Reservation in Northern Arizona. J. Kae earned her degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
Betsy is the Executive Director of the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor, Maine, dedicated to illuminating and advancing greater understanding and support for Wabanaki Nations’ heritage, living cultures, and homelands. She brings to her role over 25 years of experience in arts, philanthropy, and social impact.
She spent seven years as a Program Officer at the Ford Foundation leading a $30 million grantmaking effort for Native American and place-based cultural communities. There, she initiated the creation of the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation and served as the global chair of its Committee on Indigenous Peoples. Prior, she served as the inaugural Director of Public Programs at the Mashantucket Pequot Museum. In the last decade, she led The Opportunity Agenda’s national cultural strategy and narrative change initiatives with artists, entertainers, influencers, activists, and funders.
She is currently the Board Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation and serves as a Commissioner for the U.S. Interior Department’s Indian Arts & Crafts Board and the Maine Arts Commission.
