Tending Our Circles: The Long Conversation with Fire in the Village's Annie Humphrey & Shanai Matteson

In this episode, meet Annie Humphrey and Shanai Matteson of Fire in the Village, a collective of artists and cultural organizers that build and sustain spiritual fires of connection where they live in Anishinaabe territory, or rural northern Minnesota, and with arts and music communities around the region.As we learn, Fire in the Village isn't what we might conventionally call an organization or a program. As Shanai shares in this conversation, Fire in the Village is better understood as a work of art in itself — one that is always evolving, always changing, and deeply tethered to the places and people from which it springs.One of the most resonant images in this conversation is the one that gives this collective its name. Annie describes the circles that Fire in the Village builds as little fires — distinct, local, and belonging to their particular lands and community, but capable of connecting to other fires across the region and beyond, growing and growing until what once seemed isolated becomes a network of warmth and light.Recorded in November 2025, this conversation raises many complex and multilayered questions with depth and honesty: What does it mean to stay? What does it cost, practically and personally, to choose to remain in and work from the communities where you were shaped, rather than accept the art world's logic of moving away? What futures are possible in terms of intercultural exchange and community resilience when artists and culture bearers are genuinely of a place and not just visitors to it?This episode is presented in a format that we call the Long Conversation, an unmoderated space that allows for individuals to cultivate a depth of conversation that shares the textures of creativity and intercultural exchange that are often hard to express in conventional interviews.Episode ResourcesEpisode transcriptFire in the Village website & InstagramShanai Matteson's websiteAnnie Humphrey's websiteJohn Trudell archiveMore Long ConversationsKentucky Rural-Urban Exchange & Kentucky Performing Arts, The Golden Thread (2025)Dyani White Hawk & Jovan C. Speller, High Visibility: On Location in Rural America & Indian Country (2021)We are grateful to folks across the country who have made tax-deductible contributions to Art of the Rural to make this conversation possible, and to the Ford Foundation and Good Chaos Foundation for their support of Art of the Rural’s media programs.