Indigenous Creatives Collective Brings Community Together for Landwork Days

The Indigenous Creatives Collective is a gathering place for intertribal artists in the Pacific Northwest dedicated to art-making, community care and land stewardship. This past year Earth Rising was proud to support two of Indigenous Creatives Collective’s community landwork days. These days invite community members to join the collective in accomplishing large tasks together. Community members are paid for their labor. 

In the fall, the event centered on restoring a section of Mapes Creek. Co-led by Ethan Bryson and Travis Andy (Yakama) the event walked community members through the Miyawaki planting method, which is a dense native forest planting technique developed to accelerate ecological restoration and canopy establishment far beyond the timeline of conventional planting approaches. In the spring, community members came together again to establish 1400 plants following the Miyawaki method. 

More specifically, he Miyawaki method involves planting native species in dense, layered configurations that mimic natural forest structure, encouraging rapid canopy growth, biodiversity, and self-sustaining ecosystem development. By selecting species native to Coast Salish territories and significant to local Indigenous land history, the planting was both an ecological restoration effort and a culturally-supportive act, returning native plants to land that ICC is actively restoring. 

Both events included a shared community meal featuring local BIPOC chefs, and eco-centered art activities. These events represent the values of ICC and how they think about organizing. Participants are not only compensated for their labor financially but are brought into a community.