Hello! My name is Caroline MacCaull, I am very honoured to be the guest curator for the 12th edition of Shooting Gallery! I am a queer interdisciplinary artist primarily based in so-called “Vancouver”. My practice blends movement, performance art, video, and technology to explore the intersection of art forms and in-between space of art forms. My work often explores themes on spirituality, reality, perception and dynamic intersections that can exist between virtual and physical realms. I’m deeply passionate about utilizing technology in intentional and thoughtful ways to enrich my work. I believe that technology has the potential to be more than just a flashy accessory; it can be a collaborator, enhancing the depth and impact of the work.
As an extension of these topics and themes later this month I am very excited to also be speaking on a Panel as part of New Works XR Short Circuit Series on Sunday, March 17 – 11am-12pm at Q7 Studios, Vancouver. For more information on this free event and registration please click here.
I am also the Associate Artistic Director of Chimerik 似不像, a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary nonprofit organization consisting of artists from underrepresented groups from various age groups, backgrounds, levels of experience, and disciplines. Chimerik 似不像 is very excited to be in partnership with Future Leisure for this edition of Shooting Gallery! As part of my curation I am very excited to see how 5 projects utilize technology to enhance online live performances. The artists presented this year will serve as case studies, documenting their pipelines and tools used, as part of Chimerik’s Virtual Live Art database.
At Chimerik 似不像 we’ve come to realize a significant gap in the integration of digital technology within live-performance art. It’s a struggle many of us face, navigating through similar software without adequate documentation, which only perpetuates the inaccessibility of New Media arts. That’s why I’m passionate about bridging this gap with the Virtual Live Art database, making technology more accessible to our community. By spotlighting artists and their contributions, we’re fostering collaboration and community spirit, focusing on the collective rather than the individual. Follow @chimerikco on instagram for updates on this database and an upcoming launch event for it in partnership with New Works.
Throughout watching the processes for these selected artists it has been very inspiring to witness the challenges and successes they have all faced when integrating technology in their projects in a live-online format. It has illuminated questions I have about the integration of technology in this way, how niche this practice still is and the critical moments of “getting it to work” before pivoting in other ways/approaches. I’ve found the creative solutions each artist had in these moments to have encouraged the work to emerge in new and different ways. I’m very excited to see how all of the works land in the coming week. I invite audience members to come in with a sense of curiosity and openness as we explore the brave works these artists have created over the last few months.
Thank you! Can’t wait to have you join us March 4-9!
Tell us about yourself. Anastasiia Vorobiova is a New Media artist and director originally from Ukraine. She holds a master’s degree in Design from Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design. As a programmer of VR worlds and avatars, she is a proponent of virtual reality media within the performing arts community, encompassing theater, dance, and music. Anastasiia’s research-based artistic practice blends performance and new technologies, with a specific focus on the interplay between human consciousness and the virtual body – the avatar. https://readymag.website/vorobiova/1788480/
How would you describe your art practice?
Shamanism in VR space.
Explain your SGPS project in only 3 words.
I think I can explain my project in one word, it is serendipity. It means the unexpected discovery of something valuable or interesting when you are looking for something completely different.
What are some of the current questions and interests you have been exploring through your art practice?
To contemplate what hurts us, not only to defend ourselves but, on the contrary, with an open wound. And when we begin to understand that every joy is a wound, every beauty is a wound, friendship is a wound, and creativity is a wound, and all worthwhile things start with a wound. It starts with allowing something new to penetrate us.
This iteration of Shoot Gallery focuses on online live performances. What excites you about your project within this theme?
In social media, we shine like stars with our distant light, appearing to be something completely different from who we are, yet simultaneously inspiring each other. What impresses me is how our paths intersect. Working on the online performance has opened up opportunities for me to collaborate with people who are physically far away, like Josie Zayner and Pavlo Mazur, but they are incredible artists, and working with them is inspiring for me.
What led you to first start using technology in your art practice?
I was initially drawn to using technology in my art practice because I found traditional methods to be somewhat limiting and uninspiring. The conventional approaches felt like a confining cage, and I sought a more dynamic and expansive means of creative expression.
Why do you continue to use technology in your art-making practice?
I would imagine stopping the use of technology in my art practice if I were to escape to an uninhabited island. It seems technology has become an inseparable part of human life.
What is one thing about you that very few people know about?
My name is Kate Slezak and I am an American/German artist based in Leipzig, Germany, born and raised in Minneapolis, MN (USA). In 2018 I completed my BFA in Dance and Choreography from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where I received an education that took a somatically informed approach to contemporary dance and choreography. In 2018 I moved to Europe and have been living in Leipzig since 2020, navigating the “How To’s” of the post/pandemic artistic freelancing scene.
In addition to facilitating spaces of collective connection through workshops, dance courses, and participatory performances, a focus of my work is on site-specific and improvisatory performance and the research of the body and technology within contemporary processes of digitalization. My working approach could be described as an experimental process of grieving, gestures of coping with the enclosures of late-stage capitalism- and it’s tension with the essences of art.
How would you describe your art practice?
My art practice could be described as being committed to simultaneity, chaos, structure, instinct, and interdisciplinary approaches. I have a long history with dance and performance so I continue to be pulled in that direction, but I am also very interested in how different mediums can translate and transform into one another. I think I can enjoy adopting a broader identity of artist that is not necessarily bound to a specific medium while valuing the pragmatism that can come with working through one specific medium and its knowledges. I do think that most, if not all, art making practice involve a degree of interdisciplinarity and (as a side note) there is a contemporary tendency to exploit this ability to incorporate and expand your practices range, by forcing you to become the occupier of multiple roles (producer and performer and technician and administrator) within your own artistic production. Aka the project/precariat.
Explain your SGPS project in only 3 words
random, inspired, void
What are some of the current questions and interests you have been exploring through your art practice?
I have been working on “SOS” for almost two months now. The entire process has come to me at a time where I was/am experiencing my first real burnout which I believe has been largely induced by a very challenging and discouraging year working as a freelance artist and having difficulties connecting to the city and culture that I am situated within. My initial proposal for SGPS was very external, it included networking international actors to be a part of a kind of online rehearsal platform. When I got accepted into the festival I realized that I was in too fragile of a state to be externalizing my energy in that way and choose instead to work with what was around me and started working with a dancer, Nils Ulber, in our shared studio.
I was initially very excited to get the opportunity to work with a dancer while building a technical setup because it would allow me to not be in the dual dancer/technician role. However when I started the process I got the voice in my head that was like, no- do not forget to work with you body and develop the performance language. Something I generally have experience being a part of dance and tech “collaborative” spaces is that the tech gets prioritized. As someone who is more of a dance/choreographer than they are a technician or even media artist, I get defensive about this dynamic because I see how much, especially independent performance artists, struggle and are pushed out of practicing and developing their craft. So as I started this process I felt more of a pull towards movement research than I did with technical experimentation. Realizing that this approach did not exactly fulfill the intention of the festival but, c’est le vie.
As far as the performance language that we ended up working with, I am still finding a verbal/written language for it. This is the first time I have ever used a music track in a piece like this and it definitely is a driving force for the performance. I think that I was interested in kind of recreating the feeling of being at a party or a club but it turns out to be a nightmare, where insanity and disgust tend to creep out themselves and the dance floor becomes this kind of grounding space for being alive.I think memories like these have always influenced my ideas about what the power behind dance is and there’s something really impressionable to me about experiencing transformation on the dancefloor through a kind of sheer force and commitment to keep on going, to keep on dancing, to stay partnered with the music until you have gone through something. For me it does affirm the possibility of transformation and release during desperate times.
This iteration of Shoot Gallery is focusing on online live performance. What excites you about your project within this theme?
I have been lightly working with the media server Isadora since 2017 yet had never used it in a live, especially remote, performance. I was excited about the opportunity to test my ability to build and run the technical setup more or less independently. I think my excitement mostly stemmed from what I took as a technical challenge, more so than it did with experimenting with the format of online performance itself.
What led you to first start using technology in your art practice?
I was born in 1995, so I consider communication/technology to be a pretty inherent part of my subjectivity. I began to become fascinated with the a/effects of social media on individual and collective psyches while completing my undergrad, where I was also introduced to Isadora in one of my choreography courses. I am grateful that my professor at the time, Daniel Burkholder, took the steps to focus a portion of our coursework to teaching us how to work with Isadora because it opened up this intersectional space of dance, technology, and choreography that was otherwise absent. Dances engagement with tech has only increased since that point and it has also never left my practice.
Why do you continue to use technology in your art-making practice?
My drive to use technology in my art-making practice mostly comes from a experimentation, curiosity, and interest. I’ve always held a general affinity to the affectual and intimate space that I believe producing and consuming media provides, and this can definitely give me a sense of expression that feels exhilarating. I do think that technology, like nature, is an immense force that is intimately entangled with human evolution and development of subjectivity. I’m not going to go to far into it here, but right now seems like a pretty intense time as far as the accelerated impact tech is having on the socio-cultural. The proliferation of post-truth culture seems likely to continue with the emergence of AI which can consequentially continue to polarize and impend peoples ability to engage in like IRL dialogue, which I see as a huge political threat. I think these entanglements are hard to ignore when, as an artist, you’re invited into a space dedicated to experimenting with new technologies especially when human rights violations are being committed to even materially produced these gadgets. On the other hand I can practically make the same argument about a lot of the food I eat., etc. I think the question is where to initiate resistance, but also to look at the history of resistances and see where we can identify their impact in the present. I’ve been thinking about this in relation to media representation of beauty standards for woman and girls. As someone who was both inflicted by and educated about those cultures- have things really changed? Is that force even something that can be controlled?
In short form: I continue to use new media approaches because it allows me to create realities that I desire to be real. The field of tech, or being in the media-sphere, provides me with a space and “user tools” to engage in something that can feel like artistic practice.
What is one thing about you that very few people know about?
Haha probably about the affinity I have with being online.
Is there anything additional you would like to share?
An extra thanks to the Shooting Gallery team for inviting me to Nils Ulber for being an awesome dancer who has brought great impulses and individuality into the piece.
We are tender.gif, a collaborative duo between erψn temp3st and Kait Ramsden. We met in Montréal in 2014 and have been working together in various capacities ever since. doublevision is our first collaborative effort under the tender.gif moniker. It represents the intersection of both our interdisciplinary practices in the realms of sound, new media, digital art, dance, and installation. We are both coming from a dance background and our shared vocabulary speaks primarily to pedagogies of embodiment, sensation, and affect, which are then funneled into our multidisciplinary propositions. We love the internet and we believe in its redemption from the evils of big data, social media, silicon valley, and the like through a call to tenderness, play, and a smattering of the coquette.
Individually we have parallel art practices which feed into the tender.gif ethos. Through the following questions we broach our personal motivations as artists, thinkers, feelers, and people.
How would you describe your art practice? (K)
I make art about deep connections: to the self, to the other, to time, to space, to the universe. I dream through performance, installation, sound, and video. I use art to collectively imagine communities who live through beauty and pleasure. I make art to help us remember that we are both inherently alone and in a perpetual state of intimacy with everything around us. My art seeks to blur the lines between vulnerability and bravado, between seer and seen, between audience and performer. I seek immortality and to remember that we are all going to die. I often wonder why we are alive in the first place. I use prayer, magic, pop, and pleasure to manifest and destroy. I bathe in sincerity even though I flinch at the thought. My practice keeps me sane.
Explain your SGPS project in only 3 words (e)
Angelfire67 is typing…
What are some of the current questions and interests you have been exploring through your art practice? (K)
How can I find the easiest path? What feels joyful and where does my curiosity lead me? I am loving colour and video, funny gifs, medieval music, and anachronistic movies. I am sinking my teeth into religious iconography and fantasy, into neo-feudalist theory, and into many different computer programs. I am finding the balance between “first idea best idea” and perfectionism. How can I refine something while letting go?
I have also been thinking about money. What aspects of my art practice are most monetizable? How do I continue to pay rent and feed the beast that is my art practice? How will this affect what I am making? My art practice is largely administrative and it would feel incomplete without mentioning these questions.
This iteration of Shoot Gallery is focusing on online live performance. What excites you about your project within this theme? (e)
My favourite thing about live online performance is working with the blend of live and premade materials. There is a process of adornment through digital mediation that I enjoy. I have always been a big fan of dioramas and the online format feels like that for me. With doublevision, the online context allows us to explore very specific blends of digital and flesh. It forces our ideas into one little rectangle, like working in 2D. I’m currently trying to build out a doublevision video game so I’m vibing with the resonances I find between dioramas and platform games. There’s an interesting play in dimension here, a process of flattening, foreshortening, condensing. And then the possibilities to have the body layered on itself. doublevision is interested in strange duetting and I love the duets that occur between disparate body parts impossibly layered through the magic of live video mixing. 😉
What led you to first start using technology in your art practice? (K)
The pandemic was a major catalyst in the integration of technology into my practice. As dance class and rehearsals ceased to exist I wondered what I could make alone from my bedroom. At first I began exploring sound using field recordings, my voice, and later an MPC 1000. I started making sound collages and bedroom pop which has now developed into scoring my own performances. I also started taking videos of the clouds and bodies of water on my lonely pandemic walks and later manipulated them in video editing software. I loved the early video collages I made of pastel skies and water. The pandemic shifted my practice enormously and each work I make now is imagined through multiple technologies and disciplines.
Why do you continue to use technology in your art-making practice? (e)
I’m driven by curiosity and novelty and I find technology to be arrogant and prescriptive in a way that makes me want to mess it up and do stuff in weird inefficient ways. I’m irritated by the ways I see myself shaped by the tech I use on the daily. I hate that people are getting mega rich off that. The way I use technology is like a kind of protest. I place my body in the way of infinite progress and try to force it to contend with the vastness of bodies and consciousness. I always look for the blind spots in a bit of software and that is the place I start making.
What is one thing about you that very few people know about? (K)
Unfortunately too few people know about my youtube channel @communikait. I will take this shameless moment to plug it! Subscribe!
Is there anything additional you would like to share?
Come see our show doublevision on March 8th at 6pm!
I’m a transfeminine, mixed-media performance artist. I went to H.B Beal S.S. in Ontario and was part of the Bealart Specialist program where I specialized in Expanded Media. I’ve now moved to Vancouver to pursue my BFA in Dance at Simon Fraser. Besides being interested in the arts, I really enjoy going on hikes. I also used to bike a lot but I don’t own a bike out here in Vancouver.
How would you describe your art practice?
My art practice is relatively fluid. I really like exploring new ideas and getting my hands on things I’ve never tried before. I tend to make a lot of small ideas. I might hear some sound that is really inspiring and then try to recreate it with modular synths, or I might see a visual that I want to explore but in 3D. I’ve ended up with a multimedia sketchbook with micro-ideas from whatever inspired me. When I have to make a larger project I already have things to start from that I just edit and build upon.
Explain your SGPS project in only 3 words
Electric gender autonomy
What are some of the current questions and interests you have been exploring through your art practice?
Something that has long underpinned my practice is my interest in movement. I see myself primarily as a movement artist, and so in a lot of my works I am trying to figure out how I can compose this movement in other forms than just the body. More recently this has led to an exploration of how the dance of the body can be extended into the digital world. How can I use computers to open up what is possible in dance?
Another big idea for me recently has been exploring queer identity. I’ve been gender queer for some time now, but only in the last year did it become this idea of trans feminine. I am still trying to figure out what that means to me. And from a larger perspective I am trying to blur these edges of labels that we put onto things: Male, female, non-binary etc.
This iteration of Shoot Gallery is focusing on online live performance. What excites you about your project within this theme?
I am always excited by something that changes traditional ways of performing. Coming from a dance background, the majority of the shows I’ve been part of and have seen have been done in traditional ways: The audience all sits and watches performers on stage from the front. This performance style has shaped a lot of classical dance training, and this has then bled into contemporary training too.
What excites me about performing virtually is that I don’t have to put the audience in one place and leave them there. Since they are viewing through a camera I could easily move the camera around. The audience could even see from two different angles at the same time. The general aesthetic of my dance training has always been conscious of the static idea of “front.” So I am excited to explore how my movement is affected when this is taken away.
What led you to first start using technology in your art practice?
It was in my highschool art program at H.B. Beal S.S. that I first used technology in this way to create art. The art department had just started teaching a new medium, what they called “expanded media.” So every student in the program had to use technology for a couple projects, and not everyone enjoyed it. But for me it really clicked. My eldest sibling was also quite into coding and tech stuff, so they helped me to learn a lot as well.
Why do you continue to use technology in your art-making practice?
Ever since I started using these kinds of technologies I knew that I wanted to continue with them. I think one reason it excites me is because it is pretty new and there are still so many things that haven’t been explored within the art world using technology. It offers a new way to consider the aesthetics of art.
I really like the way technology allows work to be dynamic. I like the idea of having each viewer get something different out of a work, so they can feel like they had an experience no one else did. That’s what I’ve always enjoyed about video games, and I think a lot about how I can bring that sense of agency of the viewer into my own work.
Another reason I’ve kept using technology is because it helps to bridge the gap between disparate media. I used to have two separate practices: One in the visual arts, and one in the performing arts. But with technology I can make a visual that uses sensors to respond to my movement, thus allowing me to do both at once.
What is one thing about you that very few people know about?
When I am in a hurry to get somewhere or to finish a task, a rhythm starts playing in my head, and then I do all of my actions on beat to that rhythm.
Is there anything additional you would like to share?
I’m really excited to be part of this year’s performance series and I’m looking forward to seeing it all unfold.
Hello! I’m Juliana Loh, an award-winning immersive artist, designer, visionary, and speaker renowned for my groundbreaking contributions to the VR/AR space. Since my debut with Google Tiltbrush in 2019, I’ve led the field in creating immersive narratives that captivate audiences globally, earning accolades at International XR film festivals. My work reinforces my commitment to diversity and inclusivity through art that ignites thoughtful dialogue and introspection and stands as a testament to the power of immersive technology to foster understanding and connect us more deeply to our shared humanity. This year, I’m thrilled and honored to have been selected as a candidate by Shooting Gallery to showcase our project.
Vision:
Beyond the sheer beauty of my work, my projects represent playgrounds for self-discovery and a pathway to healing. This focus on healing stems from an acute awareness of our global need for more kindness, compassion, and empathy in an increasingly complex and polarized world. By leveraging the transformative capabilities of VR, AR, and mixed reality technologies, I would like to invite audiences to embark on their own personal journeys through storytelling, redefining our collective and individual experiences. In the face of awe and wonder, my project entitled “Spark and Sound” hopes to be transformative and a project that inspires hope.
Spark and Sound Synopsis
Spark and Sound delves into the essence of relationships, love, and our commitment to one another. It challenges us to navigate the spectrum of emotions within our relationships, addressing feelings of growth, joy, resentment, rage, desolation etc. and the complexities of moving in different directions. Our connections are a dance of give and take, bound by a single thread that tests our love in powerful ways. Spark and Sound confronts the BIG questions, such as, “If you knew in hindsight what your life would be like with your ‘other,’ would you still choose it?” Through ground-breaking immersive technology, choreography, dance, and the changing seasons, this project encourages you to explore your relationships through a modern lens of nature, humanity, and technology.
Thank you Shooting Gallery
I’m very excited to be a part of the “Shooting Gallery” roster. Our team represents award-winning experts from Canada and the United States excited to share this vision. This incredible opportunity allows us through live- streaming to share our performance from the comfort of your home while giving you the opportunity to interact with us! I’m very grateful to Caroline MacCaull and her team for enabling us to merge the transformative power of art with cutting-edge technology, deepening our understanding of relationships in a tech-driven era. Our goal is to ignite conversations that reach beyond personal connections, inspiring a global dialogue on the essence of human relationships in the modern world.
My name is Gladys Lou and I am a Hong Kong-Canadian artist and curator with an Hon. B.A. in Art & Art History and Psychology from the University of Toronto and Sheridan College. My practice utilizes experimental media and new technologies, including video, sound, new media and performance, to challenge the boundaries of the physical and virtual world. My work resolves around queer identities, mental health and Existentialism, visualizing emotions and the unconscious.
My SGPS project will be about elasticity, trauma, and memories. I am interested in the intersection between art and psychology and will continue to research the therapeutic value of art. I would like to explore ways to use art as a medium to promote social justice by presenting to the audience what it feels like to experience mental illness. My goal is to increase awareness and promote mutual understanding, so those struggling with mental health challenges can live in a more welcoming and accepting society.
This will be the first time I perform live on an online platform. I have previously worked with pre-recorded performances on video, which feels different because I can take multiple shots and edit later. I am excited about the opportunity to interact with the audience in real time, making each performance unique and special.
I first started using technology in my art practice, inspired by the artists Nam June Paik and Leo Vallireal. I continue to work with media art as I am passionate about the endless possibilities that technology can bring, as well as the future of artificial intelligence and machine learning. Combining art with technology enables me to bridge physical and virtual realities, immersing the audience in a world in between.
One thing about me that very few people know about is that I am also keen on bookbinding and papermaking. If you want to stay in touch and learn more about my work, feel free to check out my website: http://www.gladyslou.com and follow me on Instagram: @gladysgoldfish!
I am a Nehiyaw Isko artist, from Bigstone Cree Nation. Currently residing in Amiskwaciy Waskahikan also known as Edmonton, Alberta. I graduated from Emily Carr University with my BFA in Visual Arts in 2019. My work often explores history, knowledge and traditional practices. Through the use of my body and language, I speak to the past, present and future. My work is rooted in the strength to feel, express and heal. Bringing my ancestors with me, I move through installation, photography, video, sound, and performance art.
Recently, I had the honour of being an artist in residence at the Banff Centre this past month. Where I created a new work called Mullyanne nîmiw ᓃᒥᐤ. Nîmiw in nêhiyawêwin translates to she dances. I’m very excited to share the documentation from this performance with you all.
At the Banff centre I worked on making my own fancy shawl. Weaving together 3,300 bepsi/ beer tabs using ribbon. After completing the garment, I performed at the Banff Centre with Nimama. Nanâskomitin, I am so grateful to Nimama Connie LeGrande for her beautiful songs and Nehiyaw spoken word and to Linsay Willier Kendall for teaching me some basic fancy dance moves.
Nanaskomitin to my partner Shaun Hansen, to my Banff cohort, and the Banff Centre for all the love and support.
greetings all, I am lisa nevada. I am a guest in Lenapehoking, originally from Pueblo, Tiwa, Piro and Chiricahua Apache Territory also known as Nuevoméxico. Adopted as an infant, I know less about myself than I or others would like. Ongoing research tells me that my bloodlines connect to Mexican Indigenous and Iberian heritages.
I can tell you that I am a burqueña, an Indigenous Chicana who grew up and spent most of her life surrounded by Pueblo, Mexican, and New Mexican cultures – a gift for me but a place that folks tend to misunderstand, misrepresent, or stereotype to make sense of their own ideas about these cultures. I am also a product of assimilation and a rural suburban upbringing.
Even so, growing up, and well into adulthood, I participated and witnessed ceremonies and rituals that have had a direct influence on how and why I make dance offerings for the earth, humans, and more-than-human. The pulsating rhythms of the feast day dances and drums, the ritual burning of incense and piñon, the sights and smells of community food making, and the welcoming of all to sit down and eat, play a profound role in my life as a person, as an artist. I am deeply aware of the significance of performing an offering for an audience of one, none, or many. I know that even in the absence of humans, the offering is received by the earth energies, the land, waters and animals, and ancestors. My background, known and unknown, are the guiding light behind my intuition to dance, gather for healing, and practice and unleash deep gratitude for this life and our earth mother.
I have the great honor of sharing a film of my solo offering for Shooting Gallery’s Performance Series #11 “Digital Edition”.
skin of trees took root late-spring last year in the high plains of Očhéthi Šakówiŋ, Cheyenne, and Apsaalooké (Crow) territories aka Wyoming, and has continued to present a life for itself in many forms. it has become my own path towards awareness and a slow evolution towards honest self-love and deep love for others. the land, plants and trees, waters, and animals remind me there is hope.
while bathed in the imagery of tree, chants and lullabies, a calm state is conjured, gently guiding us through a cycle meant to activate a path toward a restoration of our relationship to the land, within oneself, and with each other.
I call skin of trees an offering because it has indeed become that, an offering for my continued healing, and offering for our mama, our mamas, our abuelas, our hijas, our hermanas, our tias, our primas, and all our femme relatives. it is an invitation to be still for a time, breathe, listen, witness, send good int
We belong to the land. The land belongs to us. We are in a mutual relationship with land.
We belong to each other. Not in the capitalist sense of ownership, but an indigenous collective matriarchal way. In a way that involves respect, responsibility, and generosity.
The past few years has seen me dancing out more on the land and spending more time outdoors. Although the practice of ‘land dancing’ is not new. I have spent several months over the past decade working with Rulan Tangen of Dancing Earth (Santa Fe) creating and collaborating with a diverse group of artists with the environment and land as the inspiration, from movement to eco-friendly costumes.
When the popularity of the Land Back movement took hold I had to do a lot of reflecting and learning on what this meant to me, my family and my community. This movement is not just about land ownership. It is about returning to land and culture. It is also about adhering to treaty agreements and addressing the ongoing problem with Indigenous consultations and land acknowledgements in a fair and just way. The Indigenous led movement is all of this and more. It is complex, interconnected, and extensive.
These goals might seem audacious in the face of the colonial oppression we were taught. How incredulous and bold a statement it may seem to some to suggest Indigenous people are entitled to our own lands, cultures, languages, and more.
The last few years during the pandemic have helped me to reset my life. I have been able to align myself more with the natural cycles of nature and spending winters close to home, hibernating, alone, quiet and reflecting. Travelling in spring and summer. Harvesting more often medicines, food, and hunting with my family. This has got me thinking that we don’t need permission for Land Back. We can start right now by returning to the land and continuing our relationships with plants and animals regardless of the colonial state.
My performance piece explores the theme of Land Back through a multidisciplinary approach.
Shooting Gallery 