Overflow Radio: Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Eva Martinez, Operations and Marketing Director, DiverseWorks
eva@diverseworks.org / 713.223.8346
OVERFLOW RADIO
Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation
October 3-24, 2026
DiverseWorks Gallery @ MATCH
Saturday, October 3, 5-9 PM
Opening Reception and Good Medicine Indigenous Music Festival Performance
Friday, October 9 – Monday, October 12, 12-6 PM
Listening Sessions, Skill Shares and Panel Discussions
Friday, October 9, 6 PM
Performance: Maize by ACT II
Saturday, October 17, 6 PM
Diverse Discourse Lecture w/ mary v. bordeaux, Ed.D., Co-Founder & Co-Director of Racing Magpie
Thursdays – Saturdays, 12-6 PM
Exhibition Hours
DiverseWorks is excited to announce the opening of Overflow Radio: Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation on October 3, 2026, from 5-9 PM. Developed in collaboration with Emily Johnson / Catalyst and local Indigenous and Native Heritage artists, the project will include talks, skill-shares, listening sessions, gatherings, an exhibition, and performances. Exhibiting artists are Aveda Adara, Chiara “Sunshine” Beaumont, Christie “Chichi” Chafoya, Karen Navarro, Aryn Ward, and Monica Villarreal, with additional participating artists and community partners. The exhibition runs through October 24 in the DiverseWorks Gallery @ MATCH, 3400 Main Street, Houston, TX 77002.
Šakotayišol Nunuš is the reconstructed Atakapa-Ishak name for the area that Houston currently occupies. The name translates to “Bear Creek Town,” referring to the early history of a region now home to a thriving urban Native and Indigenous population of peoples from around the world. Like that of many U.S. cities shaped by colonization, Houston’s Indigenous histories have been obscured through displacement, shifting borders, warfare, and ongoing systems of land development and destruction.
Through artist projects, public programs, and community dialogue, DiverseWorks is seeking to develop decolonial frameworks that support landback efforts, increase knowledge of Indigenous and Native history and cultural memory as a support to re-imagine Indigenous futures. Since 2024, DiverseWorks has been working with Emily Johnson and First Nations Performing Arts on Johnson’s Decolonization Rider to build long-term, accountable structures within our organization.
Overflow Radio is organized around four themes: Making, Land, Body, and Protection. Central to the presentation is a food justice quilt, Our Future, Our Food: Community Quilt, created by Emily Johnson / Catalyst, designed by Korina Emmerich, and made as part of a community-generated project that weaves together stories, recipes, ecological knowledge, and food traditions. This project is a living model for how arts organizations can highlight community-centered cultural work.
Overflow Radio: Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation is presented in conjunction with Emily Johnson / Catalyst’s Overflow Radio—a performance, skill-share, planting of 1000 trees, and radio transmission from across territories—that premieres in Mni Sóta Makoce (Minneapolis). Over 24 non-consecutive hours from October 9-12, we will gather in person in Houston and Mni Sota Makoce to listen to twelve First Nations and Indigenous authors, poets, and scholars live-broadcasting from their home territories and First Nations. Together we’ll pay attention to other scales, other forms, other knowledges. We’ll traverse together, transcending colonial borders, languages and time. We’ll feast and celebrate the making of community, as we practice our shared commitment to creating our possible futures, and as we gather what we need to know.
PROGRAMS
The exhibition and programs are free and open to the public. Some events require tickets and advance registration as noted below. All events are in the DiverseWorks Gallery @ MATCH. Programs are open to all ages, with childcare and creative activities available.
Listening Sessions, Skill-share, Panel Discussion
Friday, October 9 – Monday, October 12 (Indigenous Peoples Day), 11:30 AM – 6 PM (the first transmissions start at 12 PM each day)
RSVP
At DiverseWorks Overflow Radio: Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation will feature skill shares and panel discussions by local artists, with each day organized around a different theme: Making, Land, Body, and Protection. For the livestreamed listening sessions, we will gather in person, near radios broadcasting via micro-FM radio, to listen and learn from writers, thinkers, and scholars Kai Recollet, Joseph M. Pierce, Diane Wilson, Joan Naviyuk Kane, Eve Tuck, Dylan Robinson, Emily Johnson, Camille Georgeson-Usher, Sonia Guiñansaca, Hala Alyan, Princess Daazhraii Johnson, and Gwen Westerman. These events will feature a kid zone with childcare and creative activities. Overflow Radio contributing writer bios.
Performances
Saturday, October 3, 5 PM
Good Medicine Indigenous Music Festival, organized by participating artist Aryn Ward.
Note: The performance will be followed by an opening reception from 7-9 PM. No RSVP is needed for the reception.
Support the Festival
Friday, October 9, 6 PM
Maize, by ACT II artist collective featuring Monica Villarreal, Koomah, Laura Rios, Red Rojas, and Kill Joy.
Free Tickets
Planting of 1000 Trees
Overflow Radio engages partners and people to plant 1000 Native trees and create a network of tree care-ers in a large-scale community-care action. DiverseWorks is partnering with Trees for Houston to distribute 1-gallon White Oak and Eastern Redbud trees to visitors who commit to the trees’ care. Those who have planted a tree, or want to plant a tree, may sign up to become an official tree care-er and part of the growing care network!
Diverse Discourse Lecture & Studio Visit Series
Saturday, October 17, 6 PM
Lecture with mary v. bordeaux, Ed.D., Co-Founder & Co-Director of Racing Magpie, a Lakota-centric arts and culture organization located in Rapid City, South Dakota
RSVP
Diverse Discourse brings curators, writers, and artistic directors from across North America to Houston to give a free public lecture and conduct studio visits with Houston-area artists. Apply For A Studio Visit: open to artists working in all media; application deadline is Friday, October 9.
For more information about Overflow Radio: Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation, visit diverseworks.org. For more information about Overflow Radio and Emily Johnson, visit catalystdance.com.
SUPPORT AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This project is co-organized by DiverseWorks, Emily Johnson / Catalyst, and the participating artists and partners.
Overflow Radio is a National Performance Network Creation & Development Fund Project commissioned by Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theater (REDCAT) and co-commissioned DiverseWorks, MASS MoCA and University of Minnesota Department of Theatre Arts & Dance, more information at www.npnweb.org.
Overflow Radio is developed through creative residencies provided by MASS MoCA, John and Mabel Ringling Museum of Art, Roy and Edna Disney / CalArts Theater, University of Minnesota’s Imagine Fund with support from the McKnight Foundation, and Danspace Project with support from the New York State DanceForce, a partnership program of the New York State Council on the Arts.
Overflow Radio is created with generous support from First Peoples Fund, Howard Gilman Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, and the New England Foundation for the Arts’ National Dance Project with lead funding from the Doris Duke Foundation and The Mellon Foundation.
Overflow Radio: Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation at DiverseWorks is supported in part by grants from the Texas Commission on the Arts and the Alice Kleberg Reynolds Foundation. Additional support is from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, The Brown Foundation, Inc., Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts, Houston Endowment, Ruth Foundation for the Arts, Wortham Foundation, and the George & Mary Josephine Hamman Foundation.
LAND ACKNOWLEDGMENT
DiverseWorks recognizes that Houston is located in the area of Šakotayišol Nunuš (Bear Creek Town), the ancestral lands of the Atakapa-Ishak, Karankawa, and Akokisa. We recognize and honor these tribes and the native peoples that share the Southeast Texas region, including the Tonkawa, Coahuiltecan, and Carrizo/Comecrudo.
DiverseWorks understands that a land acknowledgement is not a substitute for action and invites you to join us in learning more about First Nations people of your area, and start conversations about how to support and amplify the voices of the Indigenous communities.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
About Emily Johnson
Emily Johnson is an artist who makes body-based work. Emily belongs to the Yup’ik Nation, is a land and water protector and an organizer for justice, sovereignty and well-being. A Bessie Award-winning choreographer, Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the Doris Duke Artist Award, she is based in Lenapehoking.
Šakotayišol Nunuš Constellation Artist Bios
Aveda Adara (Diné) is a First Nations Indigenous electronic artist residing in the urban setting of Houston, Texas. Originally from the four corners Navajo Nation, she brings rhythms that were obtained from her childhood, where she would attend night ceremonies with repetitive drum beats and rattles that resonate with her current techno music. “Techno music and raving has always been in my life, it was just in the version of a late-night ceremony we refer to as a Ye’ii Be’cheii’.”
Chiara “Sunshine” Beaumont (Karankawa Tribe of Texas, Hawk Clan) is an Indigenous Resistance Artist who focuses primarily on collage in efforts to express the sensation of putting together many broken and separated pieces into one new, intentional, and revitalized cohesive unit. Her work touches on topics of decolonization, resistance, politics, repatriation, and land back, all while reminding the viewer that, yes, something beautiful can be made out of something ugly. She creates out of necessity, to express what cannot be expressed with just words, and achieves catharsis; she hopes that the viewer might too.
Christie “Chichi” Chafoya, known and named as Chichi by family, is a two-spirit multidisciplinary artist dedicated to rematriation & decolonization through the cultural arts. Born & residing in Karankawa lands (Houston, Tejas) with Maya & Chichimecca ancestry, Chichi has found purpose and self-identity through many mediums and tools like painting, traditional handpoke tattooing, printmaking, Aztec dance, jewelry making, design, and more recently, connecting with clay. Their work is led by heart and spirit, creating with healing purpose and intention by weaving the ancient arts and traditional practices. Chichi’s work begins in the dream realm and becomes a creative expression that activates medicine, honors the land, embraces liberation, and is in relation with all of creation.
Monica Villarreal is an interdisciplinary artist, cultural leader, and educator based in Houston, Texas. Through printmaking, performance, installation, and land-based practice, her work explores migration, environmental justice, and ancestral memory through Indigenous knowledge systems. She founded Xochipilli Collective, a land-centered cultural initiative rooted in stewardship, ceremony, and regenerative practice, and serves as Primera Palabra of Danza Azteca Macuilxochitl, preserving Mexica traditions through ceremony and community education. Monica also founded Creative Women Unite, a feminist arts collective that amplifies women’s creative voices. She is a Fellow of the Intercultural Leadership Institute and has received grants from the Center for Cultural Power, Anonymous Was A Woman, the Houston Arts Alliance, and Houston in Color, among others. She serves on the Boards of Fresh Arts and Women Healing and Empowering Women (WHEW) and is a member of the DiverseWorks Artist Advisory Board. Her work is rooted in cultural resilience, land stewardship, and building community-centered systems that honor Indigenous knowledge and collective care.
Karen Navarro is an Argentinian artist based in Houston, of Mapuche, Guaraní, and European descent. Working across photography, collage, and sculpture, her practice examines the intersections of identity, race, representation, and belonging through the lenses of migration, Indigenous identity, and the enduring legacies of colonization. Through processes of fragmentation, reconstruction, and circulation, Navarro approaches images as unstable sites of meaning, tracing how visual and material cultures are shaped by—and reproduce—structures of power. Navarro is the recipient of the Artadia Fellowship (2019) and has received Individual Artist Grants from the City of Houston’s Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs (2022-2026). She has undertaken residencies at the Atlantic Center for the Arts (2024), PAC Art (2026), and has been invited for the residency at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art / The Momentary (2026). Her work has been exhibited internationally, with a presentation at Zona MACO, in collaboration with Big Medium, and exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, which included a catalog with a critical essay, Artpace, the Holocaust Museum Houston, and Melkweg Expo.
Aryn Ward (Mvskoke/Yuchi) is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, interdisciplinary artist, and the Founding Director of the Good Medicine Indigenous Music Festival. Based in Houston, Texas, with deep ties to Sapulpa, Oklahoma, Ward’s work is rooted in the Mvskoke and Yuchi languages, cultural memory, and Indigenous ways of knowing. Through classical composition, improvisation, contemporary and experimental performance, Ward creates music that serves as a living space for language and cultural preservation, weaving Indigenous rhythms, stories, and perspectives into new artistic forms. Working across music and visual art, Ward also incorporates traditional beadwork techniques into original graphic scores, creating works that invite performers to engage with sound through Indigenous visual language and symbolism. Whether composing for chamber ensembles, presenting interdisciplinary performances, or creating spaces for Indigenous artists through the Good Medicine Indigenous Music Festival, Ward’s practice is centered on carrying language, culture, and community forward while expanding the possibilities of Indigenous music today.
ABOUT DIVERSEWORKS
DiverseWorks produces and presents new multidisciplinary art through innovative collaborations with artists and communities. We honor each artist’s vision without limits to generate expansive art and learning experiences for all. Founded by artists in 1982, DiverseWorks is nationally known for its groundbreaking programming as a resource for the innovative and meaningful engagement of communities and as a force that has shaped contemporary thought and practice in Houston and the nation. DiverseWorks has a long history of supporting the creation of new work, cross-disciplinary collaboration, and serving as a bridge between diverse sectors of the art community.
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