Boston Globe: Okoŋwaŋžidaŋ by Erin Genia

At Urbano Project, artist Erin Genia ties together ‘everything in the universe’

In the studio at Urbano Project, a nonprofit art space in Jamaica Plain, teens are filling in pastel outlines of their bodies with rivers, animals, and forests. Benard Nina’s drawing has a tropical green landscape and a cooler blue one. “It’s a world where animals and people are united. We treat the animals like family. We don’t destroy the land. We embrace everything the land has for us,” said Nina, 18. Urbano’s youth artists are paid stipends to spend six hours a week in the studio working with the agency’s artist in residence. This fall, that’s Erin Genia, a Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of the Dakota tribe, who also has artwork on view.