Postcommodity is an Indigenous arts collective comprised of Raven Chacon, Cristóbal Martínez, Kade L. Twist, Steven J. Yazzie and Nathan Young. The collective was established in 2007 to function as a vehicle for artists to work outside of their individual art practices exploring innovative and collaborative scenarios resulting in work that is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
Postcommodity’s art functions as a shared Indigenous lens and voice to engage and respond to the contemporary realities of globalism and neoliberalism. The collective seeks to move Indigenous discourse beyond exhausted dichotomies of "White" versus Indigenous and increasingly esoteric notions of de-facto political sovereignty, to more relevant and pressing issues pertaining to the assaultive manifestations of the global market and its supporting institutions, public perceptions, beliefs, and individual actions that comprise the ever-expanding, decentralized, multinational, multiracial and multiethnic colonizing force that is defining the 21st Century through ever increasing velocities and complex forms of violence. Postcommodity works to forge new Indigenous metaphors capable of rationalizing our shared experiences within this increasingly challenging contemporary environment; promote a constructive discourse that challenges the social, political and economic processes that are destabilizing communities and geographies; and connect Indigenous narratives of cultural self-determination with the broader public sphere.
Postcommodity's art practice is largely focused on creating ephemeral, site specific work. The collective commonly collaborates with Indigenous and non-Indingeous artists and communities to further engage the interconnected social, cultural, political, economic and ecological relationships that contextualize and define a particular space or geography. Through this process the artists develop work that temporarily alters environments in a manner that elaborates a desired conceptual framework collectively with the audience; producing a social conception from a staged intersubjective scenario.
The artists do not employ a specific aesthetic or guiding principle that results in a body of work that is identifiably "Postcommodity," or an accumulation of a brand within the contemporary art market. Instead, the collective prefers to produce work that is nimble, opportunistic, situationalist and unpredictable. The collective's work is expressed through a variety of forms and mediums: happenings, interventions, performance, installation, video, sound, light, new media, prints, publications, etc. Postcommodity utilizes whatever form, medium or sensory experience that is capable of best expressing a particular set of ideas at a given time, within a particular context; whether it is engaging intermediaries of land, culture and community through re-imagined ceremonies; or simply pulsing as a beacon of Indigenous noise, reminding audiences about the Indigenous worldview and the interconnectedness of all things.
