NOTE: if you’ve landed here before taking your journey through the Response-Hive City,
I recommend doing do that first, although the process & order of experiencing the Response-Hive City is really up to you.
Click here to begin your journey through the Resonse-Hive City.
Connected and Response-Hive
For the a number of years I’ve been working on a series of photo-based digital collages called Aniskomiw, which means ‘Connected’ in Plains Cree. The four Liberty Village landscapes that make up Response-Hive City can be seen as part of this series.
The Response-Hive City project is also distinct from Aniskomiw in it’s web-based and interactive nature, and the fact that it is composed of four alternate versions of the same ‘base’ urban landscape.
The Response-Hive city was originally created for the online exhibition called “History of the Future”, a project conceived by curators Jasmina Karabeg and Jennifer Pickering, and intended to be launched on December 21, 2012. When I was invited to participate in this exhibition, I saw it as a perfect fit, because I was already delving deeply into concepts and subjects related to 2012 as understood Indigenously – as an energetic turning point in human history.
Like much of my previous work, the Aniskomiw series was already founded on issues, perceptions and teachings embodied and unfolding in this crucial time at the end of one cycle of the Mayan calendar, and the beginning of another, and prophesied as the time of ‘earth changes’ throughout First Nations.
The Past, Present & Possible City
In Aniskomiw and Response-Hive City, the urban centre is the setting to explore how our relationships to the environment, community, time, history, technology, ourselves, our ancestors & future generations are created and actualized.
These cityscapes reflect on how human needs, desires and intentions, both healthy and destructive, are manifest through the creation and forms of our societies, cultures, villages and cities, real and imagined, past, present and future.
People have always gathered in concentrated numbers in particular places for commerce, community, shelter and self-expression. The Aniskomiw series explores realities, impacts, implications and possibilities of culture and physical and spiritual human development as it is expressed in and through our urban environments.
The Aniskomiw images enfold both positive & negative elements of present-day cities with visions and implications of future ones. In addition, they incorporate cultural elements from villages, cities and civilizations of the past.
These landscapes portray ‘possible cities’, involving potential situations, environments, components, cultures, beings, and moments in time, all based on existing ones. They grow out of distinct places and moments, and yet at the same time they are multi-dimensional and multi-locational.
A multi-dimensional journey beginning in the here & now
The Response-Hive City environments are based in of the most urban North American settings, Toronto. In one version it also merges with New York City. The Aniskomiw series locations are also in these cities.
Being the largest urban centers in the USA and Canada respectively, New York and Toronto epitomize the Western City. They are also both situated on First Nations territories and once housed ancient and thriving communities of pre-colonial Indigenous people.
Based on the Here & Now but Created out of Always & Everywhere
The imagery for Aniskomiw begins with locations that I have photographed myself, and am very familiar with. They’re part of my personal history, and contain subjective and autobiographical elements and narratives. They’re also well-known, and hold a universal relevance and familiarity.
Sometimes I merge together various angles or images of the same location to create a hyper-real one, sometimes I leave them as-is. Then the base landscapes are developed, altered, shifted, impacted, embellished and/or populated with collaged human, architectural, animal & mythological elements and characters. They also incorporate various types of language, symbols, art & signage.
These elements are gathered from a variety of eras, cultures and places. In the Aniskomiw environments, just as my elders taught me, all time exists at once, and unfolds and exists in a circular fashion. In these digitally woven visions, the parameters of earthly space are dramatically expanded.
Cities with an Indigenous Foundation
Like all my work, the Aniskomiw landscapes are created from a First Nations perspective on the relationships they portray or address. The stories that unfold within these environments are cross-cultural, yet informed by and founded on Indigenous paradigms, which are quite distinct from the Western societies that created the ‘base’ cities.
Within the multicultural landscape and history they portray there is always an underlying Indigenous presence. It is at times obvious, at times peripheral, yet it is constant. Within these environments there is an ever present nod to the often unacknowledged yet absolutely foundational and central role of First Nations culture, people and history in what is now known as the Americas.
Hunting & Gathering in the Digital Realm during a Turning Point
I gathered most of the things collaged into the Aniskomiw environments from the internet. This involved technologies and a journey that seemed fitting for the themes of the series.
The landscapes traverse time and distance, and yet are created now, at a point in time when we have embraced digital technologies and realities. At the same time, we have entered an era spoken of in numerous Indigenous prophecies as a being a crucial point in human spiritual evolution.
These prophesies exist in different Native cultures, but make a common call. They speak of a need to re/turn to an awareness and approach to life that are inherent in Native cultures. In order to survive, and to live well, a deep respect for the Earth and the sacredness of all life must be become embodied in contemporary culture.
I saw and approached my contemporary ‘web-gathering’ of the image elements for the Response-Hive City with the spirit of traditional gathering of medicine and/or knowledge.
This kind of gathering more often than not involves a quest or journey informed by both knowledge and intuition. This intuition is often a pre-cognitive energetic connection with what or who is being gathered.
This was certainly true in my gathering process. Most decisions about which elements to incorporate came largely from strong intuitive nudges. These nudges led me down numerous unexpected paths, often leading back to parallel and/or new levels of understanding around something I was familiar with or had hunches about. Other times I ended up in places completely new to me, and learned numerous fascinating things.
Creating Across Technology & Time with The 7 Generations in Mind
During the process of making the Liberty Village landscapes, I felt in a certain sense that I truly did travel around the world, amongst many cultures and technologies, as well as back and forth through time.
The Response-Hive City is an expression of both the on and offline universe and a inquiry into where it does and doesn’t or can and can’t merge. Its also an exploration of how contemporary technology does or doesn’t/can or can’t facilitate or support our spiritual growth.
I don’t consider web-surfing or online cultural or historical education equivalent to real-time, earthly experience or movement. Nor is it a replacement. But it can open doorways, expand awareness, and reap a ‘harvest’. I consider the value in this kind of ether-gathering to be reliant in part on considering, understanding and always keeping in mind what it is, and what it’s potentials, pros and cons are.
This approach is in keeping with the values First Nations culture. Traditionally, we always approach our creation and use of technology, or anything else, with a deep consideration of how and why our ancestors did it, how it affects All Our Relations, and how it will impact the next seven generations.
Inter-Action from the Heart Brings Our Visions to Life
Response-Hive City is the first completely web-based project I have created. I feel the internet offers a platform that’s perfectly suited to the nature and presentation of this vein of my arts practice and some of my overall concerns as an artist.
In addition to other online advantages, I particularly love the way it allows for interactivity. This is an element I haven’t incorporated in such a fundamental way since my early performance art work.
This interactivity is potent in its symbolic and literal relationship to the themes of Anisomiw and Response-Hive City. It’s a wonderful reflection of the importance of personal and communal choice in the visualization, planning, creation, care taking and sustaining of our natural and created environments and use of technology.
Just as heart-informed decisions are prerequisite to traveling through Liberty Village, they are so important to our spirit-walk on Earth. To my mind and heart, herein lies our ability to incorporate our pasts and presents into a balanced future.
As the White Buffalo Calf Woman taught us ~ “Make each step like a prayer”.
