Place of Gathering and Reconciliation at the Fort Robinson Breakout Site
Nathaniel Corum is the Design Director of Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative, and has been practicing humanitarian design with communities for nearly two decades.
Artist BioJoseph Kunkel is a Northern Cheyenne Tribal Member and the Executive Director of Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative whose architecture and design processes align with indigenous values and honors the worldview of the North American indigenous populations.
Artist BioElders and culture bearers of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Montana have asked Kunkel and Corum to collaborate in developing a culturally responsive design for the historic site of the Fort Robinson Breakout and Massacre. The artists will listen, interact, and deliver a plan to activate the site for gathering, ceremony, and remembrance.
Nathaniel Corum
Mill Valley, CA
Nathaniel Corum is the Design Director of Sustainable Native Communities Collaborative, and has been practicing humanitarian design with communities for nearly two decades. Previously a Fulbright Scholar in North Africa, he studied design at Stanford University and holds a Master of Architecture degree from the University of Texas at Austin.
Joseph Kunkel
Santa Fe, NM
Joseph, a citizen of the Northern Cheyenne Nation, is the Director of MASS’s Sustainable Native Communities Design Lab based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As a community designer and educator, his work explores how architecture, planning, and construction can be leveraged to positively impact the built and unbuilt environments within Indian Country. Joseph’s early work focused on the research of exemplary Native American Indian housing projects and processes nationwide. This research work has developed into emerging best practices within Indian Country, leading to an online Healthy Homes Road Map for affordable tribal housing development, funded by HUD’s Policy, Development, and Research Office.
From 2013-2016 Joseph lead the development of a 41-unit Low-Income-Housing-Tax-Credit development, which started with an Our Town grant funded by the National Endowments for the Arts, and led to an ArtPlace America grant award. In 2019 Joseph was awarded an Obama Foundation Fellowship for his work exploring how to create transformational change through design processes that align with indigenous values and honors the world-views of indigenous populations within North America. Joseph is a Fellow of the inaugural class of the Civil Society Fellowship, a partnership of ADL and The Aspen Institute, and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.