By Mira Clark and Shelly Covert

In 2017, the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe (NCRNT) launched a new program called Visibility Through Art that would pave the way to a campaign culminating in 2024 with the purchase of a sweeping stretch of land—the site of an ancestral Nisenan village named Yulića.

Visibility Through Art (VTA) was embraced as a way of reclaiming the Tribe’s suppressed history through visual storytelling. Through the NCRNT’s tribally-guided nonprofit, California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP), Tribal members and local artists together created work that explored Nisenan history and culture in their ancestral lands.

To this day, regular exhibitions curated under Visibility Through Art foster a deeper understanding of the Nisenan story and challenge us to address legacies of cultural appropriation, privilege, forced assimilation, and near-erasure. Since the Tribe’s federal recognition termination in 1964, Tribal members have faced significant barriers to accessing essential federal programs set aside for “recognized Tribes.” CHIRP continues to evolve to meet the needs of Tribal members.

“We responded by creatively mimicking these programs while advocating for federal recognition,” said Shelly Covert, Tribal Spokesperson and CHIRP Executive Director. “We address Tribal needs while providing on-the-ground programs that involve us in the local community. Our Tribe’s profound connection to the land, once a source of prosperity and cultural richness, was shattered by the Gold Rush of 1848.”

A significant challenge in the journey toward the restoration of federal recognition has been the Tribe’s landlessness, and this has contributed to a sense of urgency in sharing the Nisenan story. Visibility Through Art, together with the 2021 opening of the ‘Uba Seo: Nisenan Art & Culture Gallery in downtown Nevada City, led to a surge in public awareness. This in turn, has given rise to the success of the Tribe’s 2024 Homeland Return Campaign, a phenomenal effort to purchase 232 acres of ancestral land, and an essential element in the Nisenan’s reclamation of its cultural identity in re-establishing its spiritual bond with the land.

Homeland Return was able to raise $2.5 million in less than six months, a truly remarkable testament to the Tribe’s strategic approach to arts, culture and creativity as a means to create awareness for its most profoundly important goals.

The Story of Land, Water and People exhibition at ‘Uba Seo—funded in part by Nevada County Arts Council in partnership with the California Arts Council through Upstate California Creative Corps—recently played a pivotal role for Homeland Return, spurring community support and inspiring action by reinforcing the profound historical relationship of the Nisenan to the land.

Says Mira Clark, VTA Coordinator: “Art has provided a way for the Tribe to connect with the local community and build relationships, alliances, and collaborations. At the same time, it has helped people to relate to painful issues like the near genocide of the Nisenan people and the Indian boarding schools. Art offers a bridge to understanding these complex topics and draws us closer together.”

Relationship building, nurtured by CHIRP and its vision for the ‘Uba Seo gallery, is at the core of raising visibility and addressing Tribal erasure. An example is the enormous public support the Tribe has received to meet a tight escrow deadline and finalize its land acquisition of Yulića. 

It is deeply important to the Tribe to ensure that ‘Uba Seo is accessible to all, offering long-running exhibitions and free admission and providing visitors ample opportunity to absorb the historical narrative of the Tribe. ‘Uba Seo has become a space for community building, advocacy, contemplation, and healing, aligning with CHIRP’s broader mission of restoring federal recognition to preserve, protect, and perpetuate the Tribe’s distinct cultural heritage.

As the NCRNT recovers from repeated attempts at cultural and physical erasure, a focus on arts and culture has provided a pathway to wellbeing, illuminating the profound power of art as a catalyst for change.