'To respect the material is to work in a state of consent, you have to be able to learn to communicate with it.'

Following the opening of her exhibition at the de Young in San Francisco, writer and sculptor Rose B. Simpson talks to Natalie Diaz about Indigenous education and collaborating with materials

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NATALIE DIAZ I first knew you as a writer, when you were doing the MFA programme in creative nonfiction at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe [IAIA]. I thought we could begin there and talk about education: what it means to you to have these different experiences of learning, both from elders and family – intergenerational knowledge – and through Native and Western institutions. How has that shaped some of the ways you move in the world as an artist, as well as a Native artist?

ROSE B. SIMPSON It’s fascinating, because my mom, who is also an artist, chose to raise me and my brother in the Santa Clara Pueblo [in New Mexico], and she wanted to return to ancestral ways of learning and being in relationship to place, land and community. So she pulled us out of tribal day school to be homeschooled. Her approach to education was very much like chopping wood to learn your fractions.

My brother was really into history, specifically military history, and we would go to the library and borrow all these books on the subject. While my mom worked in her studio, he would read his books out loud, and that was part of our lesson plan. We'd find what we were interested in and then teach her what we were learning.

In my community you learn by watching, by paying attention. If anyone has to tell you bluntly what's going on, that’s a shameful moment. You should already know, just from observing. You look around and see what needs to be done, what other people are doing, and then mimic their behaviours. It’s on you to learn. My mom’s approach to homeschooling was also very much relational and applied. I’m saying this because when she made it an option for us to go to school, it was very desirable to us. We both desperately wanted structure, especially my brother. He went to military school and I went to the Santa Fe Indian School.

Western education almost feels like sugar: it doesn't really feed you, but it's fun. Rose B. Simpson