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Al Gross and Strong Buffalo,
Reusable Graffiti

For more Northern Spark 2019 images, visit our flickr album here.

Watch our videos here: Northern Spark 2019.

View the Oyate Hotanin recap video here: Reusable Graffiti.

“We are here”An apt description. Native people have been blinded and blindsided, vilified and glorified, demonized and canonized, colonized and decolonized, fried bread and refried beans, admired for our culture, pitied for our oppression, stereotyped from a daguerreotype, stared at/looked at from a distance, picked up and used, then let down and left out again, cannon fodder for the capitalist.

Come hear our music, thoughts and words. For the visitor here with us tonight on Dakota land, we ask you to be with us not only in the present, be with us in the past and future as well.

Therefore, we present you Reusable Graffiti, a soundscape of music, spoken word, humor and storytelling from a band of Native artists and friends, the ultimate example of resilience, renewal and regeneration.

Al Gross is cultural bridge builder and community advocate, moved to Minneapolis upon graduation from high school. Alan has a life partner of 25 years named Julie, and a beautiful, talented daughter named Ashley. “I know there are many, many tribes out there in the world, now let’s try intertribal.”

Strong Buffalo is an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Dakota Oyate, a wounded, decorated Vietnam veteran. His words, translated in more than 17 languages contribute to a world where we use options other than war, racism, and classism to solve the problems we face just by being alive.

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Site(s)

Minneapolis American Indian Center 1530 E Franklin Ave, Minneapolis, MN 55404

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Hours

9pm - 2am each night
Al Gross
(b.) Cass Lake, MN
(works) Minneapolis
Strong Buffalo
(b.) Minneapolis
(works) Minneapolis and Saint Paul

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