CEAM Artist Residency Presents “Wampum / ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᎦᎫᏗ,” a performance by Elisa Harkins; co-organized with the Frost Art Museum, FIU, Miami (Virtual).

Harkins’ performance, Wampum / ᎠᏕᎳ ᏗᎦᎫᏗ,  is an ongoing project where the artist sings in a combination of Cherokee, English, and Muscogee (Creek) to electronic dance music, some of which is inspired by sheet music of Indigenous music notated by Daniel Chazanoff during the 20th century. As an act of Indigenous Futurism, it combines disco and Indigenous language in an effort to alter the fate of these endangered languages through active use, preservation on pressed vinyl, and radio play.

Harkins received her BA from Columbia College, Chicago and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She has since continued her education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. Harkins’s solo exhibition Teach Me a Song will open in late November at Western Front in Vancouver, Canada. She has exhibited her work at The Broad Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Documenta 14, The Hammer Museum, MCA Chicago, MOCA North Miami, and Vancouver Art Gallery. Harkins is currently a mentor at the School of the Art Institute Chicago, she is a Tulsa Artist Fellow, and is an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe.

The CEAM Artist Residency is supported by a grant from the Dr. JoAnn Crisp-Ellert Fund at The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida.