Land Acknowledgment & Commitment
We are on stolen land
Tikun Collective Design recognizes that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by Indigenous peoples. In Minnesota, this includes Dakota homelands within Mni Sóta Maḳoce and Anishinaabe homelands and treaty territories across the region. We honor and pay respect to elders and descendants past, present, and emerging, and we acknowledge that Indigenous nations are living, present, and sovereign.
We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, broken treaties, genocide, and multigenerational trauma. We name this history because the built environment has often been used as a tool of removal and extraction, and because truth-telling is a prerequisite to repair.
This acknowledgment demonstrates our responsibility and commitment to truth, healing, and reconciliation, and to elevating the stories, cultures, and ongoing leadership of the original peoples of this place. We are grateful for the opportunity to live and work here, and we are dedicated to growing and sustaining relationships with Native peoples and tribal governments wherever we practice.
How this changes our practice at Tikun
We do not treat Indigenous culture or knowledge as a design resource to “include.” We understand that outsiders may be invited into Indigenous circles, or may seek invitation, but cannot invite themselves, and that right relationship begins with humility, clear positionality, true intention, and respect for local protocol.
We commit to engagement that is:
Tangible reciprocity
We will back these commitments with material practice: budgeting for Indigenous expertise when it's appropriate, compensating it fairly, supporting Indigenous-led priorities through partnership and procurement, and staying accountable to impact over intent.
We pledge to be good relatives and support Indigenous sovereignty. As part of this commitment, Tikun Collective Design contributes to the Honor Tax, a voluntary payment made directly to the Lower Sioux Indian Community.
Tikun Collective Design recognizes that we occupy land originally and still inhabited and cared for by Indigenous peoples. In Minnesota, this includes Dakota homelands within Mni Sóta Maḳoce and Anishinaabe homelands and treaty territories across the region. We honor and pay respect to elders and descendants past, present, and emerging, and we acknowledge that Indigenous nations are living, present, and sovereign.
We acknowledge that settler colonization resulted in land seizure, disease, subjugation, slavery, relocation, broken promises, broken treaties, genocide, and multigenerational trauma. We name this history because the built environment has often been used as a tool of removal and extraction, and because truth-telling is a prerequisite to repair.
This acknowledgment demonstrates our responsibility and commitment to truth, healing, and reconciliation, and to elevating the stories, cultures, and ongoing leadership of the original peoples of this place. We are grateful for the opportunity to live and work here, and we are dedicated to growing and sustaining relationships with Native peoples and tribal governments wherever we practice.
How this changes our practice at Tikun
We do not treat Indigenous culture or knowledge as a design resource to “include.” We understand that outsiders may be invited into Indigenous circles, or may seek invitation, but cannot invite themselves, and that right relationship begins with humility, clear positionality, true intention, and respect for local protocol.
We commit to engagement that is:
- Indigenously led when appropriate, with real authority in cultural decisions and the right to pause, redirect, or end the work.
- Self-determined, with Indigenous partners deciding what belongs in the work, how it is used, and what remains private.
- Local and protocol-based, with permissions treated as relational and time-bound, and re-seeked when impacts change.
- Rooted in listening, with storytelling treated as knowledge that can reshape scope, schedule, and outcomes.
- Respectful and non-extractive, refusing stereotypes, pan-Indigenous aesthetics, or borrowed language used for marketing.
- Accountable in authorship, sharing authority and credit fairly, and never speaking for Indigenous knowledge or claiming it as ours.
- Collaborative in the true sense, with shared values, room for diverse views, and sovereignty setting the terms of relationship
Tangible reciprocity
We will back these commitments with material practice: budgeting for Indigenous expertise when it's appropriate, compensating it fairly, supporting Indigenous-led priorities through partnership and procurement, and staying accountable to impact over intent.
We pledge to be good relatives and support Indigenous sovereignty. As part of this commitment, Tikun Collective Design contributes to the Honor Tax, a voluntary payment made directly to the Lower Sioux Indian Community.