The Chapter House Brings LA NDN Flea to The Broad, Nov. 7 to 8

The Chapter House and The Broad are bringing LA NDN Flea back to downtown Los Angeles on Nov. 7 and 8. The two-day market pairs Indigenous art, food and community organizations with a gathering place that Emma Robbins, who is Diné, and Jana Schmieding, who is Lakota, have been building beyond the museum courtyard.

The organizers’ press materials list 48 vendors for this edition, with vendor-reported affiliations including Acoma Pueblo, Diné (Navajo Nation), Gabrielino/Tongva Nation, Lakota, Métis and Quechua. The list is not exhaustive. For Schmieding, The Chapter House’s board president, the purpose reaches past a holiday sale: people should know which Native artists and businesses are working around them, so they can hire one another and keep money moving within their own networks.

Robbins, the founder and executive director of The Chapter House, describes the same work through the space’s name. The Navajo Nation has 110 chapters, she explained in an Oct. 26 interview. “We oftentimes joke that we’re 111th chapter.”

A Place to Come Back To

Chapter houses were part of Robbins’ childhood in Cameron on the Navajo Nation. They were where she saw cousins, attended meetings and found markets, walking clubs and other ways of being together. Later, working on water projects, she returned to chapter houses to meet Elders and people who knew what was happening locally.

During the pandemic, she said, those places also became hubs for supplies and information. After moving to Los Angeles, she wanted more places where Native people could gather with that same familiarity. She founded The Chapter House in 2020.

An artist as well as an organizer, Robbins studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and in Buenos Aires. The Chapter House’s team biography records that she founded the space while leading the Navajo Water Project, connecting its beginnings to her work with communities seeking access to running water.

Its programming now includes wellness classes, yoga, sound baths, exhibitions, screenings and fundraisers, Robbins said. Running it also means handling the daily work of a physical space: calling the trash company, painting over graffiti and raising money.

The point is that people can return throughout the week. Robbins described the relief of recognizing a place and knowing others there understand: “There’s a space that exists for me and I can just like show up and other people know what I’m feeling.”

The market carries that work outside the building. Robbins also sees it as a way to include Indigenous people from across the Americas and the global diaspora in the city’s Native gathering spaces.

Building a Market From a Rejection

Schmieding’s route to the flea began with being turned down by another Los Angeles market. She had applied to sell beadwork and clothing. Instead of leaving it there, she decided to make a market herself.

She had noticed The Chapter House through events including its drag shows and reached out to Robbins. The two connected and organized a flea. Schmieding remembers an early version with 15 vendors and a taco stand; the gathering has grown with subsequent editions.

Their models include reservation flea markets and the Western Navajo Fair. Robbins remembers Friday flea-market visits as a childhood treat, complete with a mutton deluxe. Schmieding brings her experience growing up in an intertribal urban Native community in Oregon, alongside years of teaching and organizing.

Schmieding is also a writer and performer. She starred in Rutherford Falls and wrote for the series; her screen work includes Reservation Dogs, Spirit Rangers and Echo. At the flea, that career meets her work as a maker: the clothing she resells includes pieces she has worn on red carpets.

Schmieding describes Los Angeles as having the largest urban Native population of any U.S. city. She wants the market to make its local talent more visible, particularly Native women and femmes who earn income through their art.

That includes people buying at different prices. Robbins said the selection is shaped with affordability in mind, while the budget includes travel stipends for artists coming from reservations. Schmieding also sells red-carpet clothing back to people at prices they can afford.

New vendors join each edition alongside more experienced sellers. Schmieding described people learning from one another’s booths, pricing and ways of presenting their work. Robbins has watched customers return to artists they bought from before, and artists form collaborations after meeting at the flea.

Robbins also connects the museum partnership to her early work in galleries. She remembers seeing Native work presented without its maker’s name. At the flea, she wants living artists and their work to receive recognition alongside the artists shown inside The Broad.

Keeping One Another Safe

Robbins connects the need for gathering space to the pressures people are living with now, including immigration enforcement. She said she and Schmieding have held fundraisers for organizations working against ICE raids, as well as for Los Angeles fire relief.

Robbins said ICE operations are hitting Los Angeles hard. She spoke of “people from the Americas who are being kidnapped and disappeared.” She linked that concern to the need for places where people can come together, relax and share food.

For Schmieding, investing in Native artists and businesses is also a way to care for one another. “We keep each other safe,” she said.

Nov. 7 to 8 at The Broad

The free market runs from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 7, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 8, at The Broad, 221 S. Grand Avenue. All times are Los Angeles time. The museum’s event page links to free general admission tickets, which include same-day access to the market and third-floor collection galleries. Its first-floor galleries will be closed for installation.

The Broad lists DJ sets, food vendors, community resource groups and a family artmaking workshop inspired by Jeffrey Gibson. A free, limited-run poster featuring his work, She Never Dances Alone (2020), will also be available.

Sunday continues across the street at REDCAT with Sage-Based Drag Night at 6 p.m., co-presented by The Chapter House, The Broad and REDCAT. The comedy and drag program includes a live recording of the Sage-Based Wisdom podcast and requires a separate ticket.

Behind both gatherings is Schmieding’s wish for people to have more than the means to get through a difficult moment. “I don’t want our people to just survive.”