resurge/alight/burrow, 2024
resurge/alight/burrow, 2024
Ironwood poles, sinew, muslin, projectors, speakers, lights, cedar, sage, sweetgrass, blankets, cushions, baskets, reflective wall covering, mesh curtains, pine, thumb tacks, screws, Czech, Japanese, vintage French, and vintage Venetian beads, polyester stabilizer, wool felt, nylon thread, glue, resin slab, beeswax, fire
This camp has been forming within me for years. Bringing it earthside is how I bring Indigenous futurism to my installation art. resurge/alight/burrow weaves traditional architecture with projection, sound, and photography, into a camp where I hold space for convergence, creation, and ceremony. I took inspiration from the pinhole effect of shining light through a narrow opening into a darkened area in order to make an image visible inside of it, and with the camp I’m investigating reversing that flow. So instead of bringing light into darkened, quiet lodges to mirror the outside world as it exists today, I place the light source inside of them so they are lit from within, and honor their voices by allowing them to project their own images and sounds out into a world that I would like to change. I’m pulling these projections in from the past and future as well as the present.
As an Indigenous person, and especially during Native heritage month, not much time passes without being hit with comments or questions that feel heavy, draining, and not in service to my well-being. I’m hoping that some of the fatigue from navigating this every day can be eased by resting in the insulation of this camp, while letting the camp itself counter with some questions of its own. What if the organic nature of our architecture were not limited to bringing to mind notions of a romanticized past, went beyond a startled realization of our modernity, and summoned thrilling images of an abundant future into which we not only survived, but led the way? Moreover, what does it mean to the Indigenous community right now to have an art installation, specifically created for the Native gaze, reclaim space in an urban area? resurge/alight/burrow is one way I place my voice in this conversation without having to take on the labor of answering all the questions myself.
This camp is a gift to the Indigenous community here, providing a space to come together, revive cultural knowledge, cocreate art, and experience healing ceremony, all while feeling safety in the midst of this urban environment.
The concept of the piece, though, runs deeper than any one experience of it. The name resurge/alight/burrow is a construction of three different elements within a larger body of resurgence work, and each segment adds specific meaning to this iteration of that work. resurge is an allusion to reclamation of lost spaces, knowledge, and opportunities to thrive. It functions to place tangible Indigenous creation spaces in visions of the future. alight summons the ephemeral nature of the camp. Through it, the projector, speaker, and camera facilitate the brief landing of light and sound on bodies and lodge walls. burrow brings forth the insular qualities of the lodge. It cements the necessity of gestational spaces and womblike safety within this work. Through the modular assembly of these elements, resurge/alight/burrow emerges as medicine holding a potent recipe for a healed future.
resurge/alight/burrow is a place of action, creativity, and rest as resistance. And woven throughout, it is a love letter to the Indigenous communities of past, present, and future, here in this space and everywhere the camp touches down.