Denise Bright Dove Ashton-Dunkley is a Lenape artist, educator, climate activist, and council woman of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation of New Jersey. Her work encompasses traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous rights advocacy, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) awareness, and environmental law. Art, for Ashton-Dunkley, is the connecting thread between her various advocacy and educational efforts. This past April, Ashton-Dunkley completed her artist’s residency at Swarthmore College through the Cooper Series, where she created an exhibit featuring a traditional wooden dugout canoe, a stained glass sturgeon sculpture, and various other multimedia art forms.
The Phoenix interviewed Ashton-Dunkley on April 14, three weeks following the end of her residency. Below is transcript of the conversation edited for length and clarity:
Kush Kaur: I’m so happy to have you here and to be able to interview you. Swarthmore sits on the Lenapehoking, and you are a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation of New Jersey. I want to talk to you about what that means to you — emotionally and spiritually — to make art and to engage with scholarship on this land. I’m also curious about what the concept of a residency at an institution with a Western educational framework means to you, and what sort of weight that carries.
Denise Bright Dove Ashton-Dunkley: In terms of doing the residency itself, when it comes to indigeneity, of course I’m an activist, and I push for what’s true in the law and what should be transparent for Indigenous people. But I’m fully aware that, in 2026, and as a state-recognized tribe, we have to navigate within the system that’s been put upon us. If you want to navigate that system, you have to do what works. So I’m really grateful for Swarthmore, even though it holds a Western idea of education, and I know what that means.
I know that for a lot of these institutions, the easiest thing to do is just not [offer residency opportunities for Indigenous artists]. So I’m grateful. I really try to meet people — institutions, companies, other nations — where they’re at, instead of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Art is a vessel of mine that makes that bridge for hard conversations, and I don’t think we can move forward without having those conversations. So it’s been an honest and beautiful way of expressing myself. I usually try to come in a good way and show appreciation for being given the space to speak, create, and amplify the voices of those around me, including our more-than-human relatives that can’t speak for themselves, instead of making it about me or about hard feelings. I use it as an opportunity to elevate not just myself, but others along with me. That’s what I feel about the institution, and it does carry a weight with the land.
When I come upon a beautiful territory, I’m always like, “Wow, this is amazing. What must it have been like for my ancestors to live here freely?” When I looked around Swarthmore and saw that beautiful green amphitheater and the beautiful trails, I was like, wow. And there is a little bit of a stirring in your soul, you get a little twisted, like — gosh, all of this land once belonged to my people. But that’s everywhere. You have to come to a sense of maturity and say, “Okay, this is where we’re at.” And where we’re at is that I have been invited and have access to that space, and it’s really meaningful that it’s cared for and maintained so well. The beauty of how it’s maintained and the appreciation you all bestow upon it means we have good allies and good stewards.
It’s not really realistic in 2026 with the influx of people in this territory to think we could hold land in all the spaces ourselves. As a tribal community, there is a concept called Land Back — elevating and trying to regain our ancestral territories while helping people understand what it means to be good stewards. But at the same time, I really did have a lot of gratitude when I walked around campus and saw the beauty and how it’s cared for, and that made me feel really good.
KK: Your name is Denise Dunkley, but your name is also Denise Bright Dove Ashton-Dunkley. Could you speak more to that, the meaning and history your name carries? How do you understand the relationship between your name and your artistic practice, and how it shapes what you make, what you feel called to make, or your identity within and without art?
DBDAD: You come up with some really good questions. Being Indigenous, being from my nation, being a council woman, I independently decided to use my gifted name from an elder. I received this name when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old, and I’m super proud of it. Some Indigenous people don’t care to share their gifted name, and that’s their own choice. When I was given this name, Sapële Mamèthakemu, I was told that I reminded my auntie of a bright dove. The reason she said that is because she said when I entered a room, I changed the energy. I made it brighter, made whatever was going on lighter, and made folks in there happier. So I carry it with me as I make my art and as I speak, because I’m constantly reminded that the platform I have is bigger than me, and that I owe a duty to what my auntie saw in me, to always honor that gift of a name and its responsibilities.
That name comes with me wherever I go. It’s a constant reminder to be mindful, to always be humble, to work hard, to be honest, and to always come in a good way. And I think that helps my work and keeps those relationships and those flows of conversation going about the meaning of my art and its responsibility to elevate the land, to help protect this Earth, and to amplify the voices of Indigenous people and their rights: self-determination and sovereignty. I really try to stay grounded in those things and move forward in good conversation, and just hope that even with something as significant as ambassador work with foreign nations, they can see that in me as well.
KK: We talked a little bit when I met you at your artist open hours, but I felt too shy to ask for an interview, so I carved the canoe for an hour. During my time carving that canoe, I saw people come in and out, carving together. It was a community effort. And for me personally, I feel like the canoe carving was one of the most distinctive parts of your residency. What drew you to that form as a vessel for collective art? What sort of personal motivations or cultural practices inspired you to make it a community art effort? What were you hoping to carry forward from that experience?
DBDAD: As I stated during the workshops and during my opening ceremony, I live along the Appoquinimink [River], which is Lenape for “the place we stayed a long time.” It’s really significant to me because of not just the beauty it holds, but — the same way I expressed about Swarthmore — the land. I always envision what it would have been like to walk in this space maybe 300 or 400 years ago, before contact. What was it like in its natural state, before large trees were used for economic development, shipped across the ocean, turned into houses, or demolished?
I didn’t realize how small our trees were along the East Coast until I visited the West Coast and saw the redwoods. From what I understand, those trees are just as big as our trees used to be in the past. There are stories that say our trees were so big that the colonists could just drive their big wagons with a horse and buggy right through the forest. To me, that’s profound. So I always go back and reflect on what this land would have been like. I’m here on the river. I see it every morning. I see it when the sun sets on it. I see it when the moon rises over it. It’s always in the forefront of my mind, and I really try to live my life in a way where I’m constantly grateful for what’s before me and for the gifts that Creator gives.
I thought about what kind of collection I could make for Swarthmore that would have a real, meaningful impact not just on the students, but also in the conversations I have when I come to campus.
I’m always talking about climate change, Indigenous Peoples’ law, upholding sovereignty, and how policy affects the world we all share today, whether you’re Indigenous to this land or not. So how can I highlight that? I consider myself a water protector — so how can I get people to understand that? It had to involve something with water. It had to be impactful. Grand, large-scale … a collection. How can I show and highlight the toxicities and the beauty of the water, and speak for the water in a grand way, and also push through an Indigenous concept that no one’s ever done? I can paint, but how long can you look at a painting? So I wanted to incorporate painting to set the scene. I needed beauty. And when I think of beauty, I think of man-made things like glass, something shiny, because colonization has us thinking shiny things are treasures. So then I thought of stained glass — but what would the stained glass be? How could it help a relative?
And I was like: “I need a sturgeon, because the sturgeon are on the brink of extinction in the Delaware.” I know that we’ve been told to eat no more than one fish per year out of this river. This river sustained us. It means “the place we stayed a long time.” So if we’ve been here so long, how could my people have ever sustained themselves on one fish a year? The sturgeon used to grow to fourteen feet or more. That’s the size of a small moving truck, or a small whale. It could feed a whole village. I’ve been working on this with our youth group over in New Jersey, always talking about the sturgeon, always talking about the water and who inhabits it, who our relatives in the water are. So I thought: shiny, impactful, and I know they’re disappearing. And that’s how I came up with the sturgeon being beautiful in the exhibit, but also separated, so that you would wish it were whole again.
But I still hadn’t captured the water itself. And again, thinking of large trees, what used to be here — I thought it would be really remarkable and iconic to do a traditional dugout canoe. There hasn’t been one done along the Appoquinimink that I know of in centuries. And as someone who’s always talking about rematriation and Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge — which really is women-led, rooted in being a caretaker of the land, thinking about Mother Earth, thinking about children, thinking about being a water protector, thinking about being a carrier of water, because we as women creating other humans in water — I think we have the ability to actually carry water and create water ourselves.
I had a little bucket. I had a little metal pail. And I brought water from the Appoquinimink with me to campus, and I carried it everywhere, to visually symbolize being a protector of the water. In our current state of this climate crisis that we’re in we need to do things like this. How can I use this platform to really hone this in?
Thoughts were going through my mind about, how am I going to get it to school? Can I get it done in time? Because when I retrieved the tree, it was green and full of water. I know trees now, especially the tulip poplar, inside and out. I know how the fibers weave. I know how it’s interconnected. It’s so strong yet so beautiful. As you’re working on it, you can smooth it out, and it has just a beauty in texture that’s like no other.
Most mornings, [Senior Dance Lecturer, Chandra Moss-Thorne] would come in and say, “Okay, how are you feeling? Do you feel like you’re going to be done in time?” And I was like, “No.”
There was a certain level of stress, I guess — but not real stress. As an artist, sometimes you make and make and make, and it’s almost like editing a paper. You have to just be done, or you can continue editing forever. At the last minute, it’s hands up, kind of like a cooking show.
That’s why I like watching those reality cooking shows, like the Gordon Ramsay one, where they keep adding details to the dish, and sometimes you just need the timer to go off, you know?
KK: There’s this peculiar dichotomy of doing art under a deadline or under constraints: the tension between unbridled creative freedom and productive limitation. For you — how was that? I know you had a certain time period, and we’ll talk more about the completion of the canoe later, but how did that time constraint affect your artistic process?
DBDAD: It did affect it. There was a delay in funding. I don’t think it was anyone’s personal mission to do that. I just think that’s how things work, going through different channels. Because of that delay, I had to start later. I didn’t get started until October, which wasn’t a problem, but obviously this tree is outside and we’re approaching winter. That was really tough. Creator won’t give me more than I can handle. I just found myself in this rhythm where it wasn’t hard to be outside in the cold anymore. I worried about the storms, because at a certain point I couldn’t let it get wet, as it would hold water and I needed to do the burn [of the canoe].
I got really comfortable being outside, criss-cross applesauce in front of the flame. That was my spot. I could look at the boat, then look at the river. I just found myself in this rhythm of feeling really grateful to be sitting there experiencing this throughout the winter in the elements.
There was a bird coming every day — different birds, like ravens, hawks. I was out there in the freeze, and my son helped me. We had it [the canoe] covered really well. In my front yard, that was the only exposed area — that log — and then I put the pop-up tents back over it, lowered so they would block the wind a little bit, and then I would start to burn again.
The relationships I developed outside with nature were new and beautiful. So when the canoe was leaving, that same hawk came and was like, circling the house really low. And my son pointed, he was like, “Mom, your friend is circling” I just feel like I brought good energy to the Appoquinimink. I feel like the ancestors were watching. Me being out in the elements ended up not being a hardship, but a gift — one I can now share. And that wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for the delay. Creator had a better plan for how it all should go.
KK: I was wondering if you could speak to the intersection of the many things you do: art, education, activism — especially around climate justice and MMIW awareness — as well as the academia and law you’re pursuing. Do you see these as separate modes of practice, or do they converge? Is there a common theme, goal, mission, or purpose that has informed all of this? What is that dynamic like?
DBDAD: I was having this conversation with my son last night, and he’s working on his personal statement [for graduate school admissions]. He was like, “Mom, it’s such a daunting task, but it’s so worth it, because it’s a daunting task.” You’re [forced to ask], who am I? What am I? What do I want? What do I want to give to the world? On paper, it seems like I have it all together.
I try to stay in this place of humility and stay forward with goals and purposes bigger than me. But for a long time, I didn’t know how to explain myself in the work that I do. And I’m happy to say that today I can actually say, “Hey, this is who I am, and this is how I express myself.” For the rights of nature. For the rights of Indigenous people. For the rights of Black and brown people. For all of our relatives here on the Earth. For Mother Earth. For community. For language. For traditional ecological knowledge. For Land Back. This is how I express myself, and this is why those things we’re accustomed to doing aren’t working, and these are the things we need to talk about to bring change, to bring transparency, to bring hope, to bring healing. I can now advocate with my degree and with my art, because art starts those conversations. I feel comfortable asking hard questions of people who say they want to do better. I feel comfortable asking the Department of Education why we can’t sit at the table when it comes to teaching Lenape history, and why the state of New Jersey says you have to live within the state to actively participate in contributing to teaching about Lenape culture and history. I feel comfortable pushing back and saying: you misunderstand what I’m doing [in her role as a Lenape figurehead], because I understand that these colonial borders don’t represent Lenapehoking. If you’re truly giving us a seat at the table, it has to be honest and forthright. A real meeting of the minds. I don’t want to be a box you check off.
I expect honesty. If you’re helping with the water, truly help. Don’t pacify us. If you’re uplifting Indigenous people, don’t pretend you’re helping by saying “I invited you” but then tell me I’m not qualified to be an educational expert on Lenape culture because I don’t live in New Jersey. Having done art over and over again, stepping off that platform to share yourself, being vulnerable, getting pushback, taught me that as long as I’m honest and coming in a good way, I don’t care that I’m vulnerable. I care that I’m telling the truth. And that’s transferred over into the law. If I’m coming in a good way, we should still be able to have those conversations. And if someone’s uncomfortable meeting in that way, that’s very transparent and telling. It’s sometimes a little trying on Council, being that voice. But I always stay within Bright Dove and try not to come in a way of aggression, but of understanding, and getting others to understand what I’m seeing. It’s also made me think more about a J.D., a Juris Doctor. And at 54, I think I can do it. I can consult and talk about things, and I’m an expert in Indian law. But with a J.D., I can actually write policy. I can actually put a stamp on everything I’m saying.
KK: Professor of Environmental Studies and Coordinator of Environmental Justice & Community Resilience Giovanna Di Chiro has taught me about the concept of systems change versus systemic change. The former describes attempts to make change within a pre-existing framework system, while the latter describes attempts to rebuild a fundamentally flawed framework. My classmates and I have been debating which approach is right, or if the two even form a real binary. Earlier you said that, with nature and the Earth, when you follow the grain or go with the tide, it’s easier. But man-made structures aren’t perfect. Many are far from perfect. I was wondering if you could speak to this concept of working with the system to effect change versus working to change the system itself. Which comes first?
DBDAD: It depends on the situation. I’m first to go against the grain if it’s harmful. If we’re working in relationship to the land, working towards healing, bringing back a way of living with and alongside our relatives in reciprocity, then I definitely want to go with that, and go back to nature and Earth’s natural law. But if it’s systemic, systems put in place to cause harm and bring us away from those relationships, I may go along until I get my foot in the door.
The door is not closed. It may all very well be an illusion. But I’m known for going along until I’ve established enough trust, enough communication, enough allies, and then we’re going to formulate change. Figure out where this is wrong, dissect it, and help prevent it in the future. Unfortunately, sometimes that requires a lot of patience. Every generation is not designed to make grand leaps. As long as we’re moving forward, sometimes it’s a smidge; a smidge is a smidge. And I think this current political state of our nation has really worked hard to take us back.
Some might argue that’s where balance comes from, maybe we went too far, and we slipped back during this administration. But I argue we’re not going back to where we were. These folks are delusional to think we’re going to give up the advancements we’ve made through immigration, civil rights, women’s rights, and Indigenous rights.
We’re out there now, in spaces of academia, education, law, medicine … When I was a little girl, no one understood that Indigenous knowledge is now [recognized as] science. That’s growth. There’s so much we’re doing now that makes me feel hope and inspiration. Even though folks try to stifle us, we can still use our voices. We still have access to art. A lot of people have learned from history and refuse to allow an alternative version of history to be told.
They [those who feel] like they’re losing control have this idea of America as something past. No. Based on the Constitution those so-called forefathers came up with, this is what we’re entitled to. You didn’t think that through. We’re going to continue forward and hold you accountable to those words — freedom for all, liberty, and justice — by its very definition. This is why I like the law so much. The definitions of things are very clear until someone tries to change the basic definitions. But we’re in law school now, we’re scholars now, we’re Ph.Ds now, we’re writing books now. You might try to stifle us on social media, but we have access to information now. We’ve made some huge leaps that are going to keep us all moving forward. I always encourage the youth: get out there. If you feel opposition to something, stay steadfast in what’s right, go seek help from people with open ears and minds, because I think there are more people that want to do good than the opposite. And that’s the hope for our collective futures.
KK: I think most Swarthmore students face the dilemma of: “I have my passion, I have what I’m good at, and I have something in the world I want to change. How do I link those three? Do I have to focus on one before I get to the other? Do I get a Ph.D? Do I go to law school? Do I become an activist? Do I become an artist? Do I do it all?”
DBDAD: I’ll tell you what I share with my son, who’s a recent graduate of law school. One of the most frustrating things he found is that laws are very rigid, but they also have ebbs and flows. They’re challenged, they’re amended. Sometimes they just sit on the books and maybe get an amendment. But I’ve always told him: no matter what the Constitution says, no matter what legal acts or policies say, there was nothing before there was something. And no matter what people say — “That can’t be done, that doesn’t make sense, we’ve always done it this way, that would never work…” — there’s always been something before change happens. Never allow somebody to make you feel defeated or stuck in one way of thinking. Because if that were the case, America would have never changed.
Indigenous people here, or First Nations people, we’re often told: “If you guys don’t like it here, blah blah blah…” And I would say that Indigenous people are among the most patriotic — first to sign up for armed services. They’re so patriotic because at its core, they believe in what America could be. And we’re going to hold you to that. It’s not about giving up on America and walking away. That’s not an option, because we’ve been here since time immemorial. But we are going to hold you accountable to your responsibilities and duties as leaders of this nation.
Change does work. Historically, we’ve been able to do it.
And one thing I will say about Swarthmore is I met many students who are juggling multiple skills and attributes. They could go in any direction. A biologist who’s also an artist, or someone interested in both art and policy. I think that’s a beautiful thing. You all seem really well-rounded and capable. And quite possibly, when I was approaching law school at [Oklahoma University], I didn’t even know what to put in my personal statement. I told my daughter — she teaches now at Georgetown University, and she’s an excellent writer — I said, “I don’t know how to explain myself. Does art and the law work?” And she just helped me talk it out. I think I was really unique being in that space.
I like to watch “Alone,” or survival shows, to see people outside doing what they do. And there’s always a common thread of “we have to conquer this.” That colonial mindset — you and the land are separate, you have opposition toward one another. But I would argue that if we would just work with the Earth; the Earth would be much happier, and I think we would be happier too. It’s almost like fighting the current. They tell you don’t fight the current in the ocean. So in those carving classes, I was always suggesting that you go with the grain and don’t fight it.
Eventually the students got the feel for it, and there are beautiful long strips in there now. I watched students go against the grain for fifteen minutes, and then I would go over and say, how about you go with the grain? How about we go with the flow? How about we be in relationship to nature? And I also think the burning, fire being an important element in nature, really just simplified something that’s so big, so tough, so rugged and heavy. And how just a small controlled burn would allow you to take a shell and scrape the interior out, as easy as scraping out a lemon pie.
KK: The smell of the burned canoe was just … beautiful. It filled up the whole room. It was just unforgettable. It reminded me of Texas and Texas barbecue. I was like, “This is what my neighborhood smells like on a Friday evening.”
DBDAD: I was so touched when people were sharing those stories. There was a guy in there who was from Alaska, so all of these sensory experiences were taking the guests in so many different directions. I love that it took you to Texas. It took another person to Alaska. It took somebody else back home to Vermont, where they were doing woodworking with their father. It touched on memories, it took them to places they were from, through familiar smells. It took people in so many beautiful directions, and I love that. That’s truly connecting with that relative and sharing. At that point, you’re sitting there, you’re working on it, you’re having a beautiful memory because of it. And you might not be communicating in the sense of language, but there was a beautiful harmony. People working, sanding, talking, having fellowship with each other.
And almost forgetting that they’d been sitting there an hour or more. Some folks came back during studio hours and said, “Can I work on it some more?” I feel like as much as it was a gift to me to be there and to share it was also a gift to the people. It brought them a sense of calm, and of healing, to experience that. And that was beyond what I expected. I expected to share something beautiful and a technique in my art, but it just really was harmonious and became so much more.
KK: I remember I started off [carving the canoe] and I was like, “My back hurts, and I’m sweaty, and I kind of don’t want to do this. This is an unfamiliar skill.” And then I started going at it, and going at it, and it was the first time my mind had been quiet in God knows how long. You have your phone going at you, and then your emails, and then all the schoolwork you have to do, and I was like, “I’ve never felt so quiet before.”
I told so many people about the event, telling them I started off and it was so difficult, and then I did it, and it was just so beautiful. I brought one of my friends, and she enjoyed it, and she was like, “This smell reminds me of home.” It was a really beautiful experience, sharing that with my classmates, my acquaintances, different classes. The Swarthmore community had a really great time with you there.
DBDAD: I feel so blessed, honestly. I think of my time there very warmly, knowing it’s up on that platform and people can still enjoy it. I’d like it to travel, so that other people can share in this experience and get out of it as much as we did. I think it’s got a lot to give.
KK: When you were talking about your artwork and being unable to finish, I kept thinking about writing articles. Hours of editing and wondering, “Should I limit it by when it’s ‘good enough,’ or should I say five hours and then I’m done?”
DBDAD: I think about that. My son gives himself a cutoff. My daughter gives herself a cutoff, and they’re like, “This is what it is.” And what I’ve seen firsthand is that there’s always another one coming. So that one, maybe it’s the way it’s supposed to be, because there’s another one coming down the pike. And I think the idea of perfection — it’s really just the beauty of being in it and creating. Maybe the idea of perfection doesn’t exist. I have to remind myself of that, too.
