Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ: We are All Related
Spatial Dynamics Radio cyber-visiting artist Erin Genia (Sisseton-Wahpeton Dakota) is a multidisciplinary artist, educator and organizer whose practice merges cultural imperatives, pure expression and material exploration with the conceptual. Genia seeks to create a powerful presence of Indigeneity in the arts, sciences, and public realm to invoke an evolution of thought and practice within societal instruments that is aligned with the cycles of the natural world and the potential of humanity. Erin has an MS in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT, and her work has been seen by national and international audiences, including the US Pavilion - Venice Biennale. Erin is a current artist in residence for the city of Boston.
I’m honored to share my work with you as you consider your own works within a sonic context. As a multimedia artist, I use many different techniques to illustrate, communicate, or engage with ideas. My favorite media include sound, clay, stone, performance, painting, video, light, and fiber arts. Sound is a powerful medium that can create shifts in perception by creating moments. I engage with sound as a material, a communication, a prayer, and a way to share experiences with others.
Centering Dakota methodologies and concepts provides me a potent antidote to the widespread injustices I see in the inequality and ecological destruction that stem from a colonial mindset. Centuries of genocide and assimilation polices, followed by continual occupation of Dakota lands and exploitation of our people means there is much work to be done to create the conditions for our people to thrive. I was born the year the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed, making me part of the first generation of Native Americans able to legally practice my culture since colonization. It’s a sacred duty that often places me at odds with dominant institutions & structures.
In this context, my practice is based upon research, experimentation, stories, linear and non-linear cognition, nurturance and collaboration. I am concerned with the development of extra-disciplinary creative processes that can be applied to many different fields within and outside of the arts. As a cultural worker, I find that using the creative process to pursue community-level questions is a significant tool for healing and justice. These are some of my main pursuits as an artist and human being.
I’d like to share three of my works with you: “Sound Vessels,” “Canupa Iŋyan: Falling Star Woman,” and “Acoustic Tipi.
Centering Dakota methodologies and concepts provides me a potent antidote to the widespread injustices I see in the inequality and ecological destruction that stem from a colonial mindset. Centuries of genocide and assimilation polices, followed by continual occupation of Dakota lands and exploitation of our people means there is much work to be done to create the conditions for our people to thrive. I was born the year the American Indian Religious Freedom Act was passed, making me part of the first generation of Native Americans able to legally practice my culture since colonization. It’s a sacred duty that often places me at odds with dominant institutions & structures.
In this context, my practice is based upon research, experimentation, stories, linear and non-linear cognition, nurturance and collaboration. I am concerned with the development of extra-disciplinary creative processes that can be applied to many different fields within and outside of the arts. As a cultural worker, I find that using the creative process to pursue community-level questions is a significant tool for healing and justice. These are some of my main pursuits as an artist and human being.
I’d like to share three of my works with you: “Sound Vessels,” “Canupa Iŋyan: Falling Star Woman,” and “Acoustic Tipi.
- Erin Genia Cyber-visiting Artist | Part I 00:00
Listen to part I of the radio show recorded as Erin’s cyber-visit to the Spatial Dynamics Radio class. Broadcasting every day at 5:00 pm EST on SDR!
Sound Vessels (2019)
Ceramic vessels, surface transducers, amplifier, mp3 players and soundscapes.
Ceramic vessels, surface transducers, amplifier, mp3 players and soundscapes.
Sound Vessels is an iterated, performative installation of ceramic sculptures that transmit sounds. Using sound as a material, this piece is a collaboration between earthen objects and soundscapes. Sound vessels express the Dakota concept of mitakuye oyasin, in which all things in the universe exist within a continuum of life. By linking the materiality of sound to form, Sound Vessels hold and channel sound vibrations, to create a randomized orchestra of objects. Ambient, rhythmic compositions include my heartbeat, drums, a rattle, fire, a train, water, frogs and insects, and spoken words in both Dakota and English languages.
Falling Star Woman (2020)
Carved from the traditional Dakota material of canupa iŋyan/ pipestone, “Canupa Iŋyan: Falling Star Woman” depicts the legend of a star gazing young woman who travels to space, marries a star person and gives birth to a star child. Over time, she misses her family, friends, and her work as a plant medicine healer. She decides to leave her home in the stars and return to her people on earth. Using the thread of her woven dress as a rope, she climbs down from the stars. However, the thread is not long enough. She lets go and tumbles down to earth as a wakaŋwohpa/ falling star. The carving shows the moment she is transformed into a falling star. As a sacred material, this piece was prepared for its journey in orbit around the earth on the International Space Station through ceremony. It represents a symbolic prayer for peace and for the self-determination of Indigenous peoples all over the globe.
- Erin Genia Cyber-visiting Artist | Part II 00:00
Listen to part II of the radio show recorded as Erin’s cyber-visit to the Spatial Dynamics Radio class. Broadcasting every day at 7:00 pm EST on SDR!
Acoustic Tipi (2018)
The tipi sound amplifier is a drum interface that invites people to create audible vibrations which reverberate throughout space. The traditional tipi is a Dakota portable home structure for an extended family, it is a shape of strength. In this piece, the tipi is scaled to the body, and its contours have been stylized to encourage sound transmitting capabilities. It is home to four sacred drums. The embedded drums are of different sizes, each playing a different tone. The drums reside within the structure via tension support cords which enable the sound to be amplified and harmonized, projecting upwards and outwards. The drums have the Anpa o wicahnpi/ morningstar painted in white, yellow, black and red, representing the four cardinal directions. Anpa o wicahnpi is symbol of Dakota philosophy and in this context, represents our people and our ways of life that are indigenous to the land. The tipi structure resonates with the pure sound of the drum, directing it down into the ground and up into the air, each beat a communication to the earth and cosmos. Acoustic Tipi is painted with a scene from the story of Wakinyan/Thunderbirds and Unktehi/Water Serpent spirits who clash in an epic battle from ancient times. Unktehi is a supernatural being who brings catastrophe in the form of flooding, Wakinyan brings storms and atmospheric calamity. The war between these supernatural beings is a way of describing the destruction of climate change through Indigenous knowledge. Acoustic Tipi was built to occupy the Venice lagoon as a ground zero site of climate change at the Lithuania Pavilion. The drum beats emanating from the structure can act as a sonic prayer for our wetland ecosystems, existing between the worlds of the water and the land, teeming with life, and increasingly threatened by human activity. The piece is a reminder of the Dakota principle, mni wiconi – water is life, a reality that urgently needs to be recognized.
Beginning to string the hide around the frame with sinew.
Drum stringing progress next to three finished drums in different sizes.
Pulling the skin tight with sinew.
Stringing complete and ready for finishing.
Wrapping and tightening the string to enhance tension and sound.
Tight and finished, ready to dry
As a sound artist, I have been meditating on the forced stillness that is required of us to halt the spread of Covid-19. I recently read an article about seismologists reporting a severe decrease in seismic levels around the globe due to peoples’ social distancing measures. As the pandemic reveals – and exacerbates – the disparities of our economic, political and social systems, what can we observe from the different soundscapes we are living with and generating in these times? How can we learn from them and use the creative process to envision justice and healing for our communities?
Hi Erin.
Thank you so much for taking the time to interact with our class. Even with quarantine, I imagine that you are still incredibly busy. I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about you and your work. I especially found it inspiring that you root your work within your personal and cultural background. This is something that I find myself doing, and it’s interesting to see it done in such a thought-provoking, complete, and professional way. I loved listening to the story of the fallen star woman and the way you translated it in a physical way that enacted the story in a modern context. It was absolutely amazing. It’s so crucial for POC artists to reference their cultural heritage to not only enrich their own work but to provide a voice for those who cannot.
As a queer black woman myself, thinking about the historic and present systematic oppression in this country can be extremely overwhelming. How do you wade through the ocean of generational trauma to produce work that accurately reflects the complexities of indigenous marginalization? Do you ever struggle with your ability to enact sustainable positive change?
** And from a working angle, how did you as an artist team up with a space station? Did you approach them first? Did you have to finance the piece yourself or did you receive funding?
Dear Leah,
Thank you for your kind comments and salient thoughts … I appreciate your questions and perspectives on my work and the larger topics surrounding it. The systematic oppression we are facing on so many fronts is overwhelming. I think of musician John Trudell (Dakota), who said, “Protect your spirit, because you are in the place where spirits get eaten.” There are and have been so many great thinkers, artists, leaders, people who have come before us, whose struggles have paved the way for us – their deeds can help guide us as we make our way through the healing process to enact our own grounded visions for the past, present and future. We can follow on the path they have started and add to this path to ease the way for the next generation of people who will be struggling with the weight of generational trauma and crushing historical legacies.
With regard to Sojourner 2020, I answered an open call from the MIT Media Lab Space Exploration Initiative, and my work was chosen as one of several projects from around the world. Read more about it here:
https://www.media.mit.edu/posts/sojourner-2020/
I wish you strength and success in weaving your personal and cultural background into your work!
Hi Erin,
Thank you so much for sharing your artwork and experience with us!
It was interesting to hear about your artworks and the creative process, especially Sound Vessels. You explored sound as a medium and collaborated with sculptural forms. This radio show made me think about the relationship between objects and sounds. It was interesting that you mentioned objects “begin to speak and vibrate itself” with their significance and life. They have their own voices and spirits, and we can expand our creativity with the uniqueness that objects have.
Yes, Carrie! Thank you for your comment. Our relationship to objects can shift a great deal when we appreciate them not for what they can do for us, alone, but their innate vibrancy and their existence as part of the continuum of life. I’m always interested in the implications of the question: how does this shift change our orientation in the world?
Dear Erin,
Thank you so much for sharing your ideas about sound, sculptures and society. I was particularly intrigued by your comment on how colonization has caused us to “forget about our original instructions” as human beings, which is to be together and support one another. During this pandemic it is interesting to note how on a personal level, people are wanting to bring that connectivity back, but on a global level countries are pulling apart. Considering the sounds of silent cities contrasting against our more chaotic homes, I wonder what a sculpture based off of this paradox would look like. Whether it would be demonstrative of a pull or push movement and why so…
Thanks again for your time!
I love these questions, thank you! One way to think about this dichotomy could be to consider it in terms of scale. How have systems and institutions shaped the trajectory of societies: Do they they reflect personal, individual, familial or community conditions or concerns, or do they force assimilation? How can this question be addressed through creative inquiry? The possibilities are vast.
From my perspective, the legacy of colonialism, imperialism, etc. internationally has left countries reeling. Too often, the responsibility of addressing this legacy falls upon the backs of people – individuals, families, communities, who have been harmed by it over many generations.