[Canceled] The Coiled Serpent Mound: Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge in Horner Park

X, M.Arch, MFA, is an Indigenous futurist and multidisciplinary artist specializing in land, architectural, and new media installation. He is an enrolled citizen of the Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana (Koasati) and Indigenous Chamoru from the Island of Guam U.S.A (Hacha’Maori).

X has exhibited and designed internationally, including The World Expo in Shanghai, China; Venice Biennale in Venice, Italy; and Arts Electronica in Linz, Austria. He was a contributor in the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial and a 2020 Lead Artist with the American Arts Incubator, a new media and digital arts exchange program developed by ZERO1 in partnership with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.

Artist’s Statement: The trajectory of my practice is an exploration of the human interface between our built environment, technology, history, futurity, our own self-relevance, and how we navigate this relationship to construct our notions of order. As an Indigenous Futurist, I believe that art can transcend representation and become something sacred that embodies life itself. I believe that through a multiplicity of creation and being, our knowledge can be embedded into the landscape providing access for future generations of prosperity. My work directly engages the notions of a post-human world, but actualizes to activate the possibility of our own prosperity, by painting our self-constructed limitations and deconstructing them. LEARN MORE

Nilay Mistry, PLA, ASLA is a landscape architect and urban designer based in Chicago with several years of experience in design practice and education in the United States, Africa, and Asia. Raised in an immigrant family, he is fascinated with calibrating parks, streets, and informal settlements as shared spaces for all participants in the city.

Nilay attended Chicago Public Schools and earned a Bachelor of Landscape Architecture degree from the University of Illinois before pursuing a Master of Landscape Architecture in Urban Design degree from the Harvard University Graduate School of Design.

Nilay is the Interim Program Director of the Master of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism Program (MLA+U) and Professor-in-Practice in the Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture.

Michael Raczyla is a land manager with over a decade of experience in ecological restoration, environmental education, mentoring children and adults outdoors, and wilderness survival.

Michael is currently a Natural Areas Manager with the Chicago Park District where he stewards environmental and natural resources across the city of Chicago.

Horner Park is close to a number of CTA bus lines, including the 80, 49, and 78. For more information, consult transitchicago.com. There is also nearby street parking and a lot near the northwest corner of the park with entry off California. This map will help guide you to where we are meeting at the southern end of the park near the Chicago River.

This event will take place outdoors, and masking is optional.

This event is made possible by the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.