Forge Project: How an Indigenous-Led Non-Profit is Challenging the Hudson Valley’s Artistic Legacy

The Hudson Valley is known for its art history. The Hudson River School during the 19th century spearheaded the Romanticism movement in the United States, producing an extensive collection of paintings of the natural landscape we are famous for. But Forge Project, an Indigenous-led non-profit located on the unceded land of the Moh-He-Con-Nuck Community in Columbia County, argues it is a colonial legacy — one that has erased the very existence of Indigenous people in this region alongside their foundational contributions to American arts and culture. Established in 2021, the local organization has been working to challenge that erasure. Through a combination of supporting emerging Indigenous artists, working directly with Indigenous tribes and advancing land remediation and research projects, Forge specifically aims to deconstruct the institutional barriers that have long guarded the art world. Radio Catskill’s Julia Kim had the chance to speak with Executive Director and Chief Curator Candice Hopkins or Director of Indigenous Programs & Relationality Sarah Biscarra Dilley on the journey of the non-profit itself, the organization’s ongoing projects and the structural issues they aim to address and how racism and settler colonialism have been critical to the development of Western art. Here’s Dilley…