IndigeNash Expands to Six Days in Nashville

IndigeNash organizers announced that the sixth-day festival will run from Nov. 17 to 22, marking a substantial increase in scale for the third year of the event. The Native-led gathering has more than doubled its number of events compared to its inception. Organizers have also expanded the fashion showcase and gallery presence while adding an additional day of programming since the previous year.

The schedule includes musical performances, art exhibitions, a comedy night, film screenings, culinary offerings, and an artisan market. These events are led by people with Indigenous heritage and will take place at various venues across Nashville.

A central feature of this year’s program is The Indigenous Story of Cacao Chocolate Museum. Sophia Rea, a locally based chocolate historian, leads the exhibition. Rea has collected chocolate artifacts for 35 years. She will display part of her collection at RADAR615 starting Nov. 18, with the exhibit running through the end of the year. The display includes olfactory offerings that allow visitors to smell historical items.

Rea states that the museum is the only Indigenous-led chocolate museum north of the Mexico border. She explains that the perspective comes from those who first cultivated cacao. “This is a different type of museum in that it is coming from the perspective of those who first cultivated cacao, and these are of course on Indigenous land by Indigenous people,” Rea says. Her work focuses on the hidden history of Native Americans cultivating cacao. A recent archaeological study connects cacao to the present-day state of Georgia, adding context to the museum’s debut in Nashville.

Joe Clemons, the festival’s art and community lead, notes that the Indian Removal Act signed by President Andrew Jackson in 1830 fragmented Indigenous identity. Clemons grew up in Lebanon, Tenn., where yearly powwows served as the primary means for connecting with other Indigenous people. He describes the festival as a space for Indigenous artists to connect and for descendants of removed peoples to return to the area. Clemons hopes the event will inspire relationships that allow more Indigenous art to be shared in Nashville year-round. “Because of removal, there’s something inherently powerful about coming here from Oklahoma or from Wisconsin, from somewhere where there are reservations and where there are tribes, because there’s a little bit of a reclamation in that,” Clemons says.

Many IndigeNash organizers share cultural attachment and memories of Indigenous family members but do not have enough Native American ancestry to be part of a tribal roll with the federal government. Clemons describes this evolving identity as part of the ongoing conversation about what the community looks like in the future.

Artist Gary L. White will hold a panel on Nov. 19 at 3 p.m. at NKA Gallery. White will explore the experience of people with both Indigenous and Black ancestry, a group that faces two lines of historic discrimination. White notes that identifying as Afro-Indigenous is not new but is poorly documented. He explains that many Afro-Indigenous individuals were historically classified in censuses as Black because the Indian Removal Act suggested all Indigenous people had been removed.

White describes himself as a bridge between the two cultures, with a goal of sharing an emphasis on spirituality. He incorporates this into his sculpture and pottery work. He molds his pottery with natural clay and fires it in an open flame, following a tradition taught to him by his Cherokee grandmother when he was 11 years old. “It’s just a way for me to not escape, but to recenter and ground, especially in this crazy world we live in,” White says. “For me, art-making is more of a spiritual practice than anything. Because when I’m working on things, my mind is here, and I’m in the past, and I’m also in the future. It’s a sacred time.” White adds that through his art, his ancestors can have an eternal life.

White states that his worldview is shaped by the Native American viewpoint taught to him. “So it’s handed down, the language, songs, crafts, cooking, all of these things,” White says.