Of Land and Water by Keely Kernan

“It's our whole identity where I am from. It is what makes us, us.”

Chief Shirell Parfait-Dardar is a 39 year old mother of four. She spends her waking hours working to save her community, advocating for coastal restoration and preservation as the water rises. Chief of the Grand Caillou/Dula Band of Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw in Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana for the last eleven years, she is consumed by her efforts to gain tribal recognition from the US Government. As she tirelessly works to serve her tribal citizens, their native land is being swallowed by the Gulf of Mexico.

Artist Bio

Keely Kernan is an award-winning freelance photographer and filmmaker who grew up in the Appalachian mountains. She has traveled extensively both nationally and internationally to produce work for a variety of media outlets and non-­profits. Her work focuses on topics such as the environment, the natural resources that we use daily, globalization, identity, and community. She is a Flaherty Seminar Fellow, the recipient of the Princess Grace Award in film for her interactive documentary The Mississippi and a recipient of the LEF Moving Image Fund grant for the preproduction of her latest feature length documentary, UNDER THE VALLEY. The film focuses on the depleting Rio Grande aquifer in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado.