Native One, led by cultural artist Tiśina Ta-till-ium Parker, is a visionary Indigenous community practice of traditional regalia/textile making and storytelling through the disciplines of film, media and cultural revitalization. Native One is integrated into California tribal communities and our contemporary Indigneous lives as we create our stories together in the process of re-learning, re-awakening and reliving our traditional tribal practices of creation. 

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Tiśina Ta-till-ium Parker/Native One is a California Indigenous [cis] fem, filmmaker, textile designer, community cultural art activist. Tiśina is the granddaughter of Ralph and Julia F. Parker, daughter of Louis and Patricia Parker. Her people are Yosemite Southern Sierra Miwuk/Kutzadika’a Mono Lake Paiute from her Grandfather’s lineage and Kashia Pomo/Coast Miwuk from her Grandmother’s lineage. Tiśina was born and raised in her sacred tribal homeland of Mariposa/Yosemite. Born into a strong Indigenous lineage, Tiśina has practiced ceremony with her Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation (SSMN) & Yosemite Paiute tribal communities since birth. She descends from a powerful matriarchy of notable California basketmakers including her Grandfather’s Grandmother, Lucy Telles and her Grandmother Julia Parker.

 

Tiśina holds a BA in Community Studies from UC Santa Cruz with an emphasis in Art Education and a BFA in Sustainable Fashion/Textile Design from California College of the Arts in San Francisco where she graduated with honors as “Emerging Talent.” She is an active member of Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, frequently attending tribal meetings, ceremonies, gatherings and building programs for her community that are rooted in ancestral teachings. In 2018 Tiśina represented SSMN, alongside tribal leaders, in Washington D.C. to petition for Federal Recognition, an ongoing 30+ year battle with the U.S. government for tribal sovereignty.  Tiśina also holds a Firefighter II/Cultural Specialist certification & is currently working collaboratively with SSMN tribal members to re-awaken tribal land stewardship practices in her ancestral territories. In her lifeway, Tiśina designs, creates and collaborates with diverse communities and artists to illuminate issues of social/environmental justice and works deeply within regenerative design practices to create cultural art and textile work that is in balance with Indigenous ways of being. As a budding filmmaker Tiśina cultivates Native told stories, created and produced in intimate collaboration with The People. Tiśina’s life work is dedicated to community building, storytelling and Indigenous cultural regeneration through the mediums of land, film, regalia making, textiles, and community cultural arts activism. 

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Native One film projects include creative short, Chiskale - The Blessing of The Acorn (2020), Groundworks (2022), a full length documentary film, which aired on 98 PBS channels nation-wide in October 2022 and Fire As Medicine currently in production. Tiśina’s current film project, Fire as Medicine, follows California First Nations fire keepers, ecologists, and cultural burn practitioners as they ignight fire for Native cultural revitalization and catastrophic wildfire prevention. Both Groundworks and Fire As Medicine are awardees of Vision Maker Media - Indigenous Media. Fire As Medicine is

currently seeking additional funding.