About
Bvlbancha Public Access is a media channel.
We collect stories, facilitate art, and produce events on Indigenous identity in the Gulf South.
Origin Story
Bvlbancha Public Access began as an organization in 2021 as an outgrowth of a 2020 Southern Artist for Social Change grant from the National Performance Network. In general, we collect stories, facilitate art, and produce events on Indigenous identity in the Gulf South.
Our work began with the cheeky question of "What would an Indigenous Wayne's World look like?" Within this concept we found some great underlying questions which all of our work continues to essay:
Who is the Indigenous Gulf South, and what are their thoughts and art?
What is a digital ceremony?
Are there interaction and aesthetic patterns among people of Indigenous Gulf South communities?
How can we reduce constraints on Indigenous artists to better support and observe authentic collective production?
How can the general public better access contemporary Indigenous perspectives?
How can the oral history interviewing and public media content reflect Indigenous intellectual property values and documentation concerns?
How can we strengthen Indigenous relationships in the Gulf South?
Bvlbancha Public Access projects, activities, and research are aimed at furthering awareness of these questions, and providing publicly accessible media documentation to approach their concerns.
Board Members
“Aletu! Seyultcefuyat Ida. Uma' seyah, emmakã Ishak metca Chitimacha úkula’ ẽyákani ã^ttaleh” (Hello, my name is Ida. I am of the Houma Nation, and live on the lands now of the Ishak and the Chitimacha, on the western side of the Atchafalaya Basin, outside Lafayette, LA). Ida Aronson is a Queer, Two-Spirit trans person who uses they/them pronouns. They are responsible for the curation and communication of the 2025 Gulf Stream, and ensures the Zine is produced on time and at quality, and Aronson is an active member of their tribe, the United Houma Nation, as well as a founding member of the Bvlbancha Collective, Bvlbancha Public Access, and the Nanih Bvlbancha monument collective. They are also a contributing member of the Houma Language Project and Bvlbancha Liberation Radio, and the Southeastern Coordinator for the AlternateROOTS Indigenous Working Circle. Aronson is a recent climate migrant, having moved from the tribal areas around Houma, LA, to higher ground 2 hours west on a plot of land that they now steward as of 2023 as a farmstead- Raccoon Oak Farm. They are a multi-medium artist and published author working across visual arts fields, writing, lighting/theatrical design, event production, cultural crafts, language, and lifeways, as well as regional queer, mutual aid, and environmental activist spaces. Recently, they have been training as a Full Spectrum Doula, with a focus on Queer, Trans, Black, and Indigenous community support. Their focus is on uplifting, providing education for, and supporting the survival of communities.
Hali Dardar is an interaction designer, project manager, and creative storymaker. Dardar serves as the Principal Investigator on this project, and ensures the Indigenous Gulf Stream is produced on time and at quality. She enjoys developing long-term, creative engagements to improve organizational processes and produce community affirming change. Her work supports process development, community-based design, language revitalization, indigenous media, and memory documentation. Dardar is the co-founder of the Houma Language Project, and Bvlbancha Public Access. From Louisiana, she is a tribal member of the United Houma Nation. She has previously led collaborative project management and design for Language Vitality Initiatives at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Shift Collaborative, and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. She holds a BA in print journalism from Louisiana State University and an MA in Arts, Culture, and Media from the University of Groningen.
Jean-Luc Pierite is a member of the Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana tribe, and is an Indigenous activist and designer supporting distributed networks for education; public policy advocacy for racial, economic, and climate justice; and philanthropic foundations committed to diversity and inclusion. Pierite is responsible for identifying content creators for the Indigenous Gulf Stream, and ensuring the Play Jam is produced on time and at quality. He has served as President of the North American Indian Center of Boston (NAICOB) since 2017, the executive committee of the Black Mass. Coalition, Community Advisory Group for the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, and was awarded the LaDonna Brave Bull Allard Science Activist Award. Pierite is a Global Community Bio Fellows 3.0, participates in the BIPOC Makers Collective, and previously served as co-convener for the Institute for Collaborative Language Research (CoLang). He earned a Bachelor of the Arts in Humanities with a co-major in Mass Communication and Japanese from Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana and a Master in Design for Emergent Futures from the Institut d'Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain.
Donate
We are a fiscally sponsored project of National Performance Network. We can accept donations through the organization, and you can user their online form to earmark that your tax-deductible donation to go to our project.
Credits
The money and administrative support for this website came from the National Performance Network
The website was designed by Hali Dardar with art from Joe Verret. Special thanks to the anonymous tweeter who helped proofread the content. Click on each project to get to know the collaborators.