Public Art and Performance as Healing | Shannon Epplett & Ruth K. Burke | TEDxNormal
What if land acknowledgements could grow into something living, rooted, and real? In this collaborative talk, Ruth Burke and Dr. Shannon Epplett share the story of Sunset on the Longest Day, a performance and land art project that honors Indigenous history and enacts healing through domestic rewilding, native plants, and interspecies collaboration. The work challenges performative gestures by creating a long-term, community-driven commitment to restoration, memory, and belonging. Through oxen-powered earthworks, Native storytelling, and ecological art, this project invites all of us to remember, to act, and to root ourselves in deeper relationship—with the land and each other. Dr. Shannon Epplett teaches Indigenous literature, film, and popular culture courses at Illinois State University. He received his Ph.D. from University of Illinois. He is a theatre director and deviser, as well as dramaturg for Rosy Simas Danse, a Native-led modern dance company in Minneapolis.Ruth K. Burke is an interdisciplinary artist and educator who collaborates with animals, plants, and land in her creative practice. She makes land art, moving image, performance, and installations to engage ideas around multispecies histories, land use, interspecies kinship, and settler colonialism. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx
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