Along the Great Meadow, signs are posted across the pathway sharing Chumash traditions and history on May 8 at City College in Santa Barbara, Calif. After five years of planning and anticipation from the signage committee, City College has already begun brainstorming what their next collaboration may be.
Atop City College’s Great Meadow, the community gathered to celebrate the unveiling of multiple Chumash signs, documenting and informing about Indigenous peoples’ history on May 8. With multiple displays created by artist Solange Aguilar in collaboration with her family, these newfound signs display Chumash history including language, arts and food traditions, but also depict the loss of traditions and ecological destruction.
Mia Lopez, chair of the Coastal Band of the Chumash Nation, began the ceremony with a prayer, emphasizing her thankfulness of the community that gathered to celebrate the unavailing of the signs as well as creating connection and inclusivity.
Mia Lopez sings a welcoming song during the Chumash sign unveiling on May 8 City College’s Great Meadow in Santa Barbara, Calif. According to the Chumash Medicine Woman website, this song would be the first to sing when you gather.Solange Aguilar describes her artistic process for the newly created Chumash educational signs across City Colleges’ campus on May 8 in Santa Barbara, Calif. “My role was to listen, change [the design], and get the visuals to a place where we all felt very happy and proud,” Aguilar said, explaining her collaboration with her family.City College community members gather around new educational indigenous signs around campus curated by the Chumash Signage Project Committee on May 8 in Santa Barbara, Calif. After five years of the signage project in the works, the committee is already looking at future projects with City College.
“When making the art for these signs I felt a lot of pressure within myself to create these in a good way while also representing thousands of years of history and culture from the community that raised me and still raises me,” Aguilar stated, reflecting on her artistic journey.
Curated by the Chumash Signage Project Committee, one of the signs lined across City College’s Great Meadow shares stories of Santa Barbara’s Indigenous people on May 8 in Santa Barbara, Calif. The sign reads “How They Must Have Suffered” and dives into the loss of traditions and ecological destructions.
Aguilar goes on to mention that she wasn’t the only face behind these signs, and her family also played a role in curating the design. Every visual element from color to illustrations was researched so that the end result was something that the family could be happy with and take pride in.
![Solange Aguilar describes her artistic process for the newly created Chumash educational signs across City Colleges' campus on May 8 in Santa Barbara, Calif. “My role was to listen, change [the design], and get the visuals to a place where we all felt very happy and proud,” Aguilar said, explaining her collaboration with her family.](https://www.thechannels.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/CGChumash-5-364x600.jpg)
