Anti-Objects, or Space Without Path or Boundary
Total Run Time: 13:05
HD video, stereo, color
2017
“The individual is not an autonomous, solitary object but a thing of uncertain extent, with ambiguous boundaries. So too is matter, which loses much of its allure the moment it is reduced to an object, shorn of its viscosity, pressure and density. Both subject and matter resist their reduction into objects. Everything is interconnected and intertwined.” —– Kengo Kuma
The title of this video, taken from the texts of the architect Kengo Kuma, suggests a way of looking at everything as “interconnected and intertwined” - such as the historical and the present and the tool and the artifact. Images and representations of two structures in the Portland Metropolitan Area that have direct and complicated connections to the Chinookan people who inhabit(ed) the land are woven with audio tapes of one of the last speakers of chinuk wawa, the Chinookan creole, chinuk wawa. These localities of matter resist their reduction into objects, and call anew for space and time given to wandering as a deliberate act, and the empowerment of shared utility.
Commissioned by Design Week Portland, for publication in February, 2017.
Featuring: Sweetwater Sahme, Greg Archuleta, Wilson Bobb, Henry Zenk
Producing Advisor: Crystal Erlendson, Brandy Katherine Herrera
Camera, Sound, Edit: Sky Hopinka