Insecure Mix. Blue and Black Story. 33. Your Words Hit Harder Than the Train You Rolled in on, 2023. Cassette Tape, Spray Paint, Turquoise beads, Posca marker, Sharpie. 11”x4”x.75”
Insecure Mix. Canoe story. 31. Our stories carry us through time together (Dance to keep them alive.) Cassette Tape, Spray Paint, Antique buttons, Posca marker, Sharpie. 11”x4”x.75” Culture is the living, sentient spirit of a community in solidarity. It is the container that carries us through time together. We are connected to one another not only by our shared experiences, our relations, our histories, and our customs— but also by the deep tethers to places. Canoe story binds the efforts of consolidating modern research as a recorded oral history with the custom of evoking the supernatural. It considers the efforts of preparing for ceremony with material specific to place and the allocation of everyday objects for decoration. Haida people have lived among the largest Pacific red cedar trees, and for this reason were able to develop the most sophisticated canoes of the region through a maintained continuum of knowledge. Canoe Story creates an analogy to imagine the deep engineering of storytelling as an expansive, crafted practice. She is a cassette tape on the outside, but cedar pours from within, and she bears the face of an ancestor spirit adorned with regalia.