Cost $45 Member / $65 Single Day Nonmember

Monday, August 26, 8:30 am – 9:45 am

Menu Includes: A selection of bakery goods, seasonal fruit salad, scrambled eggs, and smoked turkey bacon with coffee, tea, and juice.

Western Arts Alliance acknowledges that we – organization, staff and members – are uninvited guests on the lands where we locate our offices, where member organizations have their venues, and where we gather for the WAA Conference each year. This year we will convene August 26-29 in the city now called San Diego, CA, with a pre-conference Symposium in Tijuana, Mexico, August 25 – both located in the traditional homelands of the Kumeyaay, Mission Indian, and Luiseño peoples. 

In each place we visit, we make every effort to seek permission from the tribes whose homelands we are on, and honor the elders and peoples of those nations, by opening the Conference with an acknowledgment of land, and offering time on the Plenary stage for tribal representatives to speak to Conference attendees. Depending on the locations and tribes, previous convenings have been opened by elders, grand entries, drum or dance groups, prayer and song.  

In addition, pre-Conference Monday (August 26) begins with a breakfast session: The Land You’re On. Introduced last year in Seattle, The Land You’re On session was presented by Ken Workman, the sixth great-grandson of Chief Seattle, who spoke to WAA members about the long history, protocols and relationships of the tribes that have shared and cared for the land and waters, now called Seattle, from time immemorial. This year, TLYO will feature representatives of the Kumeyaay tribe. 

The Land You’re On session helps ground our members in place and increased cultural understanding. It introduces Conference attendees to the first people of the lands upon which we gather and gives WAA the opportunity to publicly honor their elders and tribal representatives. We hope you’ll join us.