Transcript
Lynnette Haozous: Putting a mural, an indigenous person painted onto a wall on a public space, saying that this was here before. All of this. I use my murals to repatriate these spaces and to bring it back to some of the original people of this land.
You have to be very courageous to create your art. That really stuck to me to be proud of who I am and my culture, hoping that some little kid may see a big matriarch on the wall and be like, Hey, that's my auntie, and that empowers them. Being able to tell our stories through these murals and these creations, it's empowering and a lot of responsibility to free up your whole body. Within the movement of the strokes and the paint, it became like a dance. I really fell in love with that.
I don't want to be put into a box of creating what people consider native art. I like to put contemporary flair, a bunch of beautiful colors. The beautiful thing with my murals and making art prints of my murals is that the message doesn't get just to that area. It's now spreading farther into the world. That's my gift. That's putting my medicine out there and sharing.
We need people to be proud of where they come from. We need our culture to survive. Now, it's my responsibility to put our mark on this world and to say that we're still here. We hold that power now to create our future, to have us still living and still thriving, no longer just surviving.
