FIRE KINSHIP Exhibition Announced At Fowler Museum This January

Fire Kinship: Southern California Native Ecology and Art, the second PST ART exhibition at the Fowler Museum at UCLA, opens January 12. The exhibition reintroduces fire as a generative force, one that connects us to our past and offers a collective path toward a sustainable future, challenging us to rethink attitudes of fear and illegality around fire—a reconsideration with potentially profound implications for California, a state frequently braced for uncontrolled wildfires.

On view through July 13, 2025, the objects, images, and stories in the exhibition make a case for fire (kút in the Payómkawichum and Cahuilla language, ‘aaw in Kumeyaay, and cha'wot in Tongva) to be perceived as an elemental relative who creates a cycle that gives all living things a fresh beginning.

Included in Fire Kinship are loaned object-relatives that Native communities used and continue to use in partnership with the land, place, and fire: baskets, ollas, rabbit sticks, bark skirts, and canoes. Fire tempers and hardens clay vessels used for cooking and storing food. It helps cultivate plant materials employed in the making of baskets, blankets, capes, and skirts—pánul, se'ill, súul, and sélet (yucca, juncus, deergrass, and sumac in Wanakik Cahuilla language): fire thins out juncus patches, allowing new shoots to grow. It also softens the tar that, when spread on cottonwood canoes, makes them seaworthy.

Fire Kinship is organized by the Fowler Museum and curated by Daisy Ocampo Diaz (Caxcan), assistant professor of history at California State University, San Bernardino (CSUSB); Michael Chavez (Tongva), former Fowler archaeological collections manager and NAGPRA project manager; and Lina Tejeda (Pomo) M.A. in history at CSUSB. The exhibition is part of the nation's largest art event, Getty's PST ART: Art & Science Collide. 

Fire Kinship presents a living history that centers the expertise of Tongva, Cahuilla, Luiseño, and Kumeyaay communities past and present. On January 11 at 6 p.m., the opening celebration will feature a birdsong blessing on the Fowler's terrace. On January 12 at noon, the curators will lead a walk-through and discuss the show. Further public programs will include additional curator-led tours and discussions, artist talks, film screenings, nature walks in the UCLA Botanical Garden, and more. 

The exhibition has been shaped through collaborations with key community leaders throughout Southern California: Lazaro Arvizu (Gabrieleno/Nahua), Marlene' Dusek (Payómkawichum, Kúupangawish, Kumeyaay, and Czech), William Madrigal (Cahuilla/ Payómkawichum), Wesley Ruise Jr. (Burn Boss and La Jolla Band of Luiseño Indians Fire Department Chief), Stanley Rodriguez (Iipay Nation of Santa Ysabel), William Pink (Cupeño), Lorene Sisquoc (Fort Sill Apache, Mountain Cahuilla descendant), and Myra Masiel-Zamora (Pechanga Band of Indians).

Fire Kinship provokes viewers to radically rethink their relationship not only with fire, but with the earth, which provides for our home, food, water, and shelter; and to recognize that Native ecological techniques are not merely stories from the past, but viable practices that hold critical knowledge for the future. These embodied traditions can significantly contribute to the health of our air, water, agriculture, artmaking, cultural heritage, and ultimately—the survival of humanity.

“Southern California Native communities are bringing fire practices back from dormancy,” said Ocampo Diaz. “Colonization, both past and present, disrupted a cycle that honored fire at the center and caused earth-wrenching ramifications. Native communities have been holding on to these gentle burns despite California's ravaging by flames. We are all part of this story, and it is a time for listening and (un)learning.”   

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