Between
This iterative video series seeks to sit, explore, and expand the often condensed, and unsettling space/state/site of "in betweenness." It doesn't have to be that way. Located sonically in the color black, sinking deep in the earth and reaching far out in outer space, this work teeters between spaces of perceived comfort and discomfort, longing, control, darkness and light—stretching and reaching towards cyclical spaces of joy, light spectrum, and becoming.
Acknowledgement
This work takes place on a particular site of significance—a location ancestrally cared for and with by Dakota and Anishinaabe people for a very long time—a specific site that was stolen and displaced from a particular type of care and relation, and land that has managed to raise and care for a particular Multiracial Black Ruthenian body, ancestrally displaced, for a 30 + year lifetime. Diving into ancestral displacement and genealogical shapes of estrangement this work seeks liberation from the limiting aspects of the body through deep study of earth connection and impact. How does the body impact the land and how does the land impact the body? Where do each begin and end?
Special thanks to the land, water and relations that raised me.
Additional gratitude for process feedback and support: Valerie Oliveiro, Emily Gastineau, Jeffery Wells, IA cohort, Aaron Rosenblum, Pramila Vasudevan, Zoe Cinel, Christina Schmid, Christine Baumler, Chotsani Dean, Chris Larson.
Significant living teachers and influence: Joscelyn Gorham, Ananya Chatterjea, Rosy Simas, Pramila Vasudevan, Carol Pierce and Family.
In memoriam: Eulis/Sonny/Surya Pierce, Johnye Mae Pierce, Florence Pouchak, Laurie Carlos, Yogi Achala (Charles Bates), Swami Veda Bharati, Nalini Behari, Kyle Alexander, and all known and unknown ancestors
UMN art department: technical support and equipment use.