For this session, each participant should come prepared with examples of symbols, motifs, iconography, and/or design concepts from their own ancestral heritage(s) that resonate for them and from which they would like to develop something as a redesign for the future.

We'll look for inspiration to the Indigenous Futures movement in the Arts—an exploration by Indigenous contemporary artists of how ancestral ideas and aesthetics might be transformed through futuristic ideas and technologies. We will also check out a variety of examples by acclaimed artists well-known for such reinterpretations.

You don't have to be Indigenous to find something in YOUR OWN ancestral heritage(s) to rethink, abstract, or even script-flip in this manner—indeed, I implore you all to avoid appropriation of Indigenous cultural patrimony and ceremonial objects!—so please keep that as your focus here.

*Pictured: My own reimagining of the face of a TUMI (a ceremonial knife typical of the Inca Empire and Pre-Incan cultures of my homeland, Peru) made from laser-cut acrylic with silver enamel.