April 7, 2018: Invitation to a Lost World: 5,000 Years of Art from the Bay Area Shellmounds

April 7, 2018

On the afternoon of April 7th, 2018 at the Berkeley Art Museum/Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) artifacts from the West Berkeley Shellmound and Emeryville Shellmound, some of them thousands of years old, were taken from the Phoebe Apperson Hearst Museum’s storage area and, for the first time ever, were shown to the general public. Over 300 people joined California I CAN and friends in the light-filled and elegant BAM/PFA amphitheater to view these remarkable objects and to hear a panel of contemporary Native California artists, skilled in traditional practices, discuss  how these objects were made, the aesthetic principles that guided their manufacture, how they were used, their place within the culture, and their survival to this day.  It was an afternoon of wonder, beauty and surprise about the art, craft and practices of our oldest native ancestors who walked the land we now call Berkeley—and how those traditions live on today. Invitation to A Lost World was co-sponsored by the California Institute for Community, Art, and Nature; the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology; the Berkeley Art Museum and the Richmond History Museum.

• Linda Yamane, Rumsen Ohlone, is a basketweaver, Tule boat-builder, tribal historian and language advocate who has revived the Rumsian language, an original Ohlone language from the Monterey Bay.
• Frank LaPena, renowned Wintu-Nomtipom/Tenai painter, writer, singer and ceremonial leader, founded Maidu Dancers and Traditionalists and teaches Art and Ethnic Studies at CSU Sacramento.
• Fred Velasquez lives in Miwok country in the Sierra foothills. He is a longtime participant in and supporter of Miwok cultural life and is a master craftsman working in stone, bone and shell.
• Ron Goode, tribal chair of the North Fork Mono Indians. He is a cultural leader, fine artist, storyteller, and maker of traditional arts and crafts from bows and arrows to skin tanning.
• Vincent Medina is an Ohlone who traces his ancestry to the East Bay, a fluent speaker of Chochenyo (the original language of Berkeley), a storyteller, and a leader in the revival and adaptation of traditional practices for the twenty-first century.
• Kent Lightfoot is a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley.

The California Institute for Community, Art & Nature is currently working on a book about the history, critical cultural value and continuing spiritual significance of the historic West Berkeley Ohlone Shellmound and Village site.  Join our mailing list to stay informed about the publication of this book and all of our current projects and upcoming events.