Community members can help create a living land acknowledgement Friday in a summer solstice event at Illinois State University's Horticulture Center in Normal.
Sunset on the Longest Day debuted in 2023 as a performance honoring native voices and culture. It also marked the groundbreaking of a future one-acre art installation by ISU art professor Ruth Burke.
Organizer Shannon Epplett decided to reboot Sunset on the Longest Day this year, aligned with Burke's progress on Domestic Rewilding, a custom "earthwork" being created using draft animal labor.
“There will be a mound built where the draft animal power comes in, and the area will be planted with indigenous plants,” Epplett said.
That's where Sunset on the Longest Day comes in. Community members will have an opportunity to hear stories, scatter seeds and plant native species that will become part of Domestic Rewilding. After sunset, they'll have a bonfire and s'mores for participants to enjoy.
Many institutions have crafted land acknowledgements to be read at public events or printed in programs and on websites, noting the forced displacement of indigenous communities and on whose land those institutions now sit.
“Usually land acknowledgements are a one-way statement of, ‘Yes, we know we’re standing on your land,’" said Epplett, an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians who has taught theater and Native studies at ISU.
"This is resisting that," he said. "You're not hearing from Native people. You're not even asking most of the time."
"Land acknowledgements, yes, are usually for white people," said Tayna Picard, Epplett's wife. "This is trying to do something beyond that."
Once Domestic Rewilding is complete, visitors will have a chance to reflect in a beautiful landscape filled with native plants and accessorized with statements by indigenous people whose ancestors are native to Central Illinois.
Where the 2023 event was about breaking ground and hearing native voices, Epplett said the intention in 2025 is to "restore and replant."
"It's about building community," he said. " In the moment we're in, I feel like that's important. It feels very threatened. So, it's building community, being in relation to one another, with each other—here and now. And then building this thing for the future. Planting seeds. Putting something back into the earth."
Sunset on the Longest Day take place at 7 p.m. June 20 at the ISU Horticulture Center on Raab Road, across from the Corn Crib. Admission is free and open to the public.
