"We Are Here: Indigenous Perspectives on Place"
Monique Verdin is a member of south Louisiana’s United Houma Nation Tribal Council and a part of the Another Gulf Is Possible Collaborative core leadership circle of brown (indigenous, latinx and desi) women, from Texas to Florida, working to envision just economies, vibrant communities, and sustainable ecologies. Monique is also a member of the L’eau et La Vie (Water is Life) Bayou Bridge pipeline resistance camp council. She has intimately documented the complex interconnectedness of environment, economics, culture, climate, and change in southeast Louisiana, for decades. Her indigenous Houma relatives and their life ways at the ends of the bayous, in the heart of America’s Mississippi River Delta, has been the primary focus of her storytelling practice, and she is the subject/co-writer/co-producer of the documentary My Louisiana Love. Her interdisciplinary work has been included in an assortment of environmentally inspired projects, including the multiplatform/performance/ecoexperience Cry You One as well as the publication Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. Monique is also the director of The Land Memory Bank & Seed Exchange, a series of southeast Louisiana activations sharing native seeds and local knowledge through citizen collaboration, attempting to building a community record of history and present, while seeking sustainable solutions.