Two Factors of Authentic Action

When the Houma Language Project began in 2013, it began with a vision of being radically digital – relying on technology and digital infrastructure to create a digital community center focused on language reconstruction. Twelve years later this concept has turned out to be effective; however, it may not be the best place to start now. The online landscape has terraformed into a new geography over the past decade, and we have responded by realigning how we want our information to flow through it. This 20-minute talk will explicate the interaction design and social elements which made a digital community center an effective strategy 10 years ago to consider how we might apply these strategies into the present world of digital identity scavenger hunts.

Bio

Hali Dardar is an enrolled member of the United Houma Nation, and co-founder of the Houma Language Project and Bvlbancha Public Access. Her works explore interaction design, new media art, and community process.

Within these roles, she crafts long-term, creative engagements to improve organizational processes and produce community affirming change. Her work supports process development, community-based design, language revitalization, indigenous media, and memory documentation. Past interaction design projects include the 2021 and 2023 Indigenous Gulf Streams, Ripple Effect’s Water Glossaries, and both the Unrecognized Stories and Language Keeper interview series.

Dardar was a 2020 Southern Artist for Social Change through the National Performance Network, a 2024 artist in residence at Sipp Culture’s Rural Performance Production Lab, a a 2024 Monroe Fellow at Tulane University, and a 2025 Self and Universe Artist in Residence at Tulane University’s A Studio in the Woods. She has previously led collaborative project management and design for Language Vitality Initiatives at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, Shift Collective, and the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. She holds a BA in print journalism from Louisiana State University and an MA in Arts, Culture, and Media from the University of Groningen.