Please join us in acknowledging that Arts + Literature Laboratory (ALL) is situated upon traditional territories. To the people of the Ho-Chunk Nation, who have called this region home for time immemorial, this land is known as Teejop (or Dejope).
The name, “four lakes” in Hooçak or Ho-Chunk language, is an homage to lakes Waaksikhomikra (Where the Person Rests, now Lake Mendota) Čihabokihaketera (Great Tipi Lake, now Lake Monona), Sahu Xetera (Tall Reed Lake, or Lake Waubesa), and Nąsąkučitera (Hard Maple Grove Lake, now Lake Kegonsa) which surround us here and around which Indigenous tribes thrived for at least 12,000 years before the arrival of colonizers. After the turn of the 19th century, the United States federal, territorial, and state governments violently removed Ho-Chunk people, resulting in widespread death and forcibly resettling others without their consent. The US government perpetrated decades of violence and land and natural resource theft, breaking several treaties including the 1825 Treaty of Peace, in which it had recognized the Ho-Chunk and their sovereignty over 10.5 million acres of land in what is now southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois and had agreed these lands would not be entered without the Nation’s permission.
We recognize the enduring presence and territorial claim of Aboriginal peoples on this land. We acknowledge that we occupy land violently stolen from Indigenous people and that the riches of this land have been used to build many institutions upholding white supremacy/domination.
ALL is a nonprofit, community-driven arts organization whose mission is to steward a community laboratory for creative experimentation, collaboration, and excellence in contemporary arts. A central goal of ours is to help artists thrive, particularly those excluded and underrepresented. As part of our dedication to acknowledge the traditional occupants of Teejop, we are committed to ongoing efforts to celebrate and support Indigenous artists and to develop programming that supports the telling of stories of Indigenous people and their flourishing.