Patrisse Cullors Instagram – In the first week of the new year, we witnessed an incomprehensible tragedy unfold before our eyes: Los Angeles was on fire. From the dystopic haze of political finger-pointing and predatory corporate interests, a simple petition emerged. It called for immediate action to address the firestorm catastrophe through Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge (TEK).
The “Petition for a Climate Resilient L.A.” brought together an unlikely coalition between the artists Lauren Bon (Metabolic Studio) and Patrisse Cullors (The Center for Art and Abolition, Crenshaw Dairy Mart, Black Lives Matter); Anawakalmekak, a K-12 school that centers Native American pedagogy; and the Gabrielino-Shoshone Nation of Southern California. As the woefully deficient State (local, city, state, and federal) response to the catastrophe made clear, community preparedness at a grassroots level is the only way forward. The coalition’s call for an Indigenous-led recovery strategy that upholds traditional knowledge of the land, water and its capacity, charts a path that honors the safety net of mutual aid and hyperlocal community, while seeding a different future for the entire city of Los Angeles. The strength of the coalition emerges in this mutual vision for being in deep relationship with planetary metabolisms.
Read the full interview with coalition members Lauren Bon @metabolicstudio , Gabrielle Crowe (vice chair and secretary of environmental sciences, @gabrielinoshoshonenation ), Marcos Aguilar (executive director, @anawakalmekak ), and Patrisse Cullors @osopepatrisse , about the vision of the coalition, its roots in ceremony and reparative justice, and the transformative ways that Indigenous stewardship of ancestral lands charts a more resilient future. 🔗 in bio | Posted on 28/Mar/2025 20:09:15
