The Work, Before the Doors Open

Top image: Emily Johnson / Catalyst, performance view, "Your Honor," a care procession. Photo by Douglas Mason.

Emily Johnson / Catalyst on Overflow Radio and the Decolonization Rider

Sometimes decolonization work begins by considering things we may not have before, like how a name is written. A font choice can determine whether a person’s name, an Indigenous language, or an Indigenous place name is represented as it is meant to be, or if it can be represented at all. What may appear to be a simple technical or design decision can reflect much larger questions about whose languages, identities, and ways of knowing are shared, centered, and paid attention to in institutional systems and beyond. 

Not every font supports the letters, symbols, and diacritics used across Indigenous languages. We have found that typefaces such as BC Sans and Noto Sans offer broader support for many of these letters, symbols, and diacritics.

The Decolonization Rider, written by Emily Johnson and stewarded by Catalyst, is a tool that asks artists and institutions to examine the policies, practices, and assumptions that shape how artists, scholars, other cultural workers, and institutions work together. 

A rider is a familiar document used in the performing arts world. Artists use riders to communicate what is needed for their work to happen, from technical requirements to working conditions. The Decolonization Rider expands that idea. It asks us to consider not only what is needed technically to present a performance, but also what is needed so that an artist's work, community, knowledge, techniques, and life are respected and protected. How do we relate to and respect artists and their communities? What do we understand about the lands we live and work on? How might we deepen our knowledge, recognition, and responsibility to lands, communities, and one another?

The Decolonization Rider moves through nine domains, or nine areas of practice, spanning internal policies and relationships, communication, contracting, Indigenous knowledge protection, and material commitments.

The point is not to arrive at a moment where an organization can declare itself “decolonized.” There is no checkbox for that. The Decolonization Rider instead creates a framework for asking better questions, making necessary changes, naming where barriers remain, and continuing the work.
 

Learning in community

This work does not happen in isolation.

The Decolonization Rider led to the creation of Catalyst’s Peer Learning Group; this includes leaders from arts and cultural organizations coming together every two months to focus on one of the Decolonization Rider’s nine domains. The space is free for all organizations and designed for exchange: participants can share questions, challenges, practices, and examples from what they are navigating within their own institutions.

The conversations do not require anyone to arrive with a perfect answer. Often, the most useful exchanges happen when people are honest about where they are. Meaningful institutional change often happens gradually. A policy may need to be rewritten, a budget may need to change, or a department may need to advocate across a larger institution to move a decision forward. Keep going.

Northrop offers a recent example. In conversation with Catalyst and the Decolonization Rider, the Northrop team has been learning from Indigenous editorial guidelines and identifying where BC Sans and Noto Sans fonts can be used intentionally and consistently. The Northrop team also identified areas where the University of Minnesota or Northrop brand guidelines currently limit their ability to make design changes temporarily or permanently. Identifying and naming limitations is part of the work. It allows the work and advocacy to continue rather than stopping at the first barrier or disappearing simply because the first answer is no.
 

Bringing the Rider into Overflow Radio

That same thinking is present in the work surrounding Overflow Radio.

Audiences coming to Northrop will encounter an immersive performance environment that includes quilts, skill-shares, radio transmission, gathering, and exchange. Around that experience are many decisions that may be less visible: the language used to describe the work, how Indigenous knowledge and artists are respected and protected, how relationships are built, and how an institution is guided to consider its responsibilities to the people and place connected to a project.

The Decolonization Rider gives us a way to bring these needs forward before an audience enters the room, so artists and cultural workers are not left to navigate questions of care, knowledge, relationships, and institutional responsibility on their own. When that work begins early, it creates an environment where artists are better supported and audiences encounter a gathering shaped by that care.

There are also care considerations for the 1,000 Native Trees initiative connected to Overflow Radio. Overflow Radio engages local partners and people to plant 1,000 Native trees and create a network of 1,000 tree care-ers in a large-scale community-care action. Mapping and living archive methods, including zines, a living map, app, and social media, document each tree’s location, name, voice, growing/fruiting cycles, care needs, and teach connection in relation to Indigenous lands, waters, and place names. Beyond the ecological impact, we build a growing and needed network of care.

The Decolonization Rider, the performance itself, and the planting and caring for 1,000 Native Trees are all part of a larger process asking how a gathering can create relationships and responsibilities that continue beyond the culmination of an event, and how this overflow can be supportive of action.
 

The work continues

For institutions, committing to decolonization does not mean having every answer. It doesn’t even necessarily mean being “ready.” It means being willing to examine how decisions are made, who those decisions affect, what practices have been inherited over time, and what can be changed.

We invite you to experience Overflow Radio: the quilts, the transmissions, the skill-sharing, the tree-planting, and the complete gathering. And while you are with us, we ask that you consider the work that happens before doors open: the questions, relationships, negotiations, and acts of care and protection that make another way of working together possible.