Victoria Canby, Clarion Alley, 2023, 2024, 2025, Current
It is common among Indigenous Peoples to grow up on the ancestral lands of another tribe. I grew up on the Coast Miwok and the Pomo lands in the North Bay but my ancestors on my mother’s side were from New Mexico. Throughout my life, my mom did her best to provide some Indigenous Community to connect with while living in the North Bay, this often meant attending local Indigenous celebrations and listening to the wisdom of California Indigenous elders. My mother often felt saddened by her inability to share Diné traditional wisdom with me, she attended boarding school and in order to succeed she had to assimilate. As I got older I found a deeper connection to my Indigeneity through the wisdom, magic, and medicinal power of plants. I spent time learning about the relationship Indigenous Peoples from all over the Americas have with their local plant relatives and how they use them for healing, in prayer, for journeying, to nourish their communities, and in art. This mural is meant to honor the California Indigenous Peoples that have been so supportive and gracious to me, my Diné heritage and to those that helped me to connect with the traditional ways lost to much of my family during my grandmother’s generation, and the plants that so generously give us healing and magic. This mural is also meant to recognize how plants continually offer Indigenous Peoples throughout the Americas pathways to our ancestors and tools to heal our communities and planet. This mural is also meant to encourage Indigenous Peoples to learn about their own tribe’s plant knowledge and grow your own medicine. I am forever grateful for and could not have painted this mural without the help of Theo Knox, Redbird Willie, Andrew Samuels, Alexis Fineman, Dana Hawke, and my son Avi.
Incorporated throughout the image is symbolism: the strawberries represent the work I have been fortunate to do with Theresa Harlan for the Alliance for Felix Cove working to reIndigenizing Pt Reyes National Seashore, the earring on the rabbit honors my friend Edward Rebird Willie and all of the knowledge he has shared with over the years, the rabbit is dedicated to my friend Kim Shuck and the times I spent at her kitchen table talking about tricksters, the stripes on the coyote woman’s dress are the four sacred colors of the four sacred Diné mountains, the corn honors the many tribes that all share corn in their creation stories, the background represents the everyday chaos of the world around us, the popcorn popping off the wall is from the memories of watching popcorn popping off ceremonial Mayan fires, the small cross shapes scattered throughout the middle of the mural are stars representing balance, the four directions, the four elements and magic and the figure in the middle is a spirit being based off of many different figures I have seen in my studies, they represent a holy being and portal between realms.
– Victoria Canby
An exploration of the expansionist ideology of Manifest Destiny, its continuing impact on multicultural communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, as well as its legacies of inherited and perpetuated violence, trauma, addiction, and the outgrowths of resistance and resilience to Manifest Differently
Manifest Differently is a multifaceted project featuring 38 multigenerational artists and poets. Using literary, visual, and media arts storytelling in conjunction with public programming, the collaboration will interrogate the expansionist ideology of Manifest Destiny, its continuing impact on multicultural communities in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, its legacies of inherited and perpetuated violence, trauma, and addiction, and the outgrowth of resistance and resilience – giving fire to movements for social change. As recognized in Argentina’s National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons in 1983, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission in 1996, and others that have followed, we must acknowledge and witness the impacts of our history before we can move forward, otherwise the same injustices will be repeated, as we have seen most recently in the case of Israel’s genocidal treatment of Palestinians.
Storytelling is a powerful tool to help provide deep witness, compassion, and inspiration.
Manifest Differently was conceived and developed by poet/artist Kim Shuck and CAMP co-director/ artist / writer Megan Wilson and is co-curated by Shuck, Wilson, Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, Amy Berk, and Katayoun Bahrami with support from California historian Barbara Berglund Sokolov, CAMP communications director Veronica Torres, and humanities advisors Mary Jean Robertson, Kyoko Sato, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Anita Chang, and David A.M Goldberg. Audiences were introduced to the history of Manifest Destiny and the forward vision to Manifest Differently through the lens of a diverse multigenerational team of artists and poets, whose histories and experiences include those of American Indian/Indigenous, Asian American, Pacific Islander, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, Southwest Asian, and North African (SWANA), and white/European American descent.
The project was exhibited in 2023/24 in collaboration with the following presenting partners – Clarion Alley Mural Project (CAMP,) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA), Artists’ Television Access (ATA), Minnesota Street Project (MSP), San Francisco Public Library, Book Castle, the Beat Museum, Book Castle, San Francisco State University, and Stanford University.
Participating poets, artists, and humanities scholars include:
Poets: Aileen Cassinetto, Avotcja, Clara Hsu, Dena Rod, E.K. Keith, Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Genny Lim, Josiah Luis Alderete, Kim Shuck, Lauren Ito, Linda Noel, Lourdes Figueroa, Mahnaz Badihian, Maw Shein Win, MK Chavez, Stephen Meadows, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Tureeda Mikell, Voulette Hattar
Visual and Media Artists: Adrian Arias, Afatasi, Amy Berk, Anita Chang, Barbara Mumby-Huerta, Biko Eisen-Martin, Carolyn Castaño, Chris Gazaleh, Katayoun Bahrami, Kim Shuck, l. frank manriquez, Marcel Pardo Ariza, Megan Wilson, Rene Yung, Shaghayegh Cyrous, Shonna Alexander, Vaimoana Niumeitolu, Victoria Canby
Humanities Scholars: Dr. Anita Chang, Dr. David A.M. Goldberg, Dr. Fuifuilupe Niumeitolu, Dr. Kyoko Sato, Mary Jean Robertson