Installation view from Hessel Museum of Art – Photo by Olympia Shannon
Breathings
I've been here and I've been there, and like words proclaiming an invocation, these photographs are their own exhalations, their own breathings, their own exaltations to the minute Heroka who bless and raze and give direction to matters concerning life and death. These landscapes are squared away and bordered off by breaths etched on their surface outlining pleas for quiet and respite, and bearings to help traverse weary landscapes of wayward histories.
These photographs were taken on an analog medium format camera and a rotary tool was used to etch and scrape text along the borders of the inkjet prints.
Photo by Olympia Shannon
Photo by Olympia Shannon
Photo by Olympia Shannon
Ah ha hey as my dad used to say, he learned it from my great grandfather I imagine. Blue Sky with a good voice, across this water on the other side of the encircling lake. We're not far from there and the direction that they lead us, ahahé.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
Teją́. The Sea. It's neither our name for the great lakes or lesser lakes. It's the sea, and we said we were from the north and from the salt. It's too much right now. Too much like learning that my father performed the Breathings his entire life. I have recordings of him, and I heard them when I was little, and I said them myself after his death.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
Kará! Listen! This is part of the source, these waters and these currents carrying canoes and the ancestors, new and old.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
I think of my home tonight. I don't have any resolutions, but I've felt so much through these streets, these neighborhoods. This land and this Land hold so much, and this pain and this Pain call for salves we already have, still needing to be wrapped and poulticed.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
Free me from this body, I'm tired and want to go home. Free me from this body, it's weary and weak, and I am so tired.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
The clouds are too dull this time of year. It's late June and I'm full of anger and hate. They think we're trash, they think we're as useless as our garbage buried in their fields turned up under plow, exposed in heavy rain. It makes me angry to think about that. To feel like that. Under plow and over plowed and plowed over by machines dredging and weeding through the hills and the fields and my family and my home.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
The thunders have returned. From the north they came south as I was sitting outside on a porch visiting and laughing with an old friend who always tells me "welcome home" every time I come around. They say that this time of year, the thunders have returned. k'oiregišana.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
High in a mountain lake the kids touched their toes to the water surrounded by and surrounding their youth. The dregs underneath the turbid sediments sip the sands drifting down sinking down from the bottoms of their feet. It felt minor and buried as the day shined out.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
The mountains are growing and you're over there looking at me like that. These Breathings are begging's, these Breathings are asking for anything having to do with direction. Wrapped in blankets made of clouds, Morning Star got up and pointed the way. We were too tired and too weak to proceed, but still the gesture is still in the east at a certain time of year.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
O! Being here right now, not thinking of yesterday or the day before. But a long time ago last night aunty mentioned today and the rain falling and streaking against the upstairs window as Stacey and I looked down at the birch waiting to be climbed. This isn't the outside, and being here then felt more comfortable, in slicks and hoods, in boots and in our youth.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
Here and after, never knowing what came before or comes next, they sit and watch the ocean thinking of the sand and what's buried underneath. I heard a long time ago that there's a village somewhere near here. Under the sand, overgrown by trees, restless and quiet.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
They don't care about us and laugh when we turn on each other. I promised myself, no memories, no similes, still, I am deeply troubled at heart.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
I fell into thinking of you today. It was such a good fall, and feels good to say.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
The foothold held fast as our toes ached and the salty water sloughed away skin and left bone to be ground to dust and sand. There's only rocks and seagulls here though, steadfast against the sound of water trickling over and again with each push and pull of the tide, or some kind of wake.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
These are the Breathings.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs
Free me from this body, my voice can carry only so far. Free me from this body, as I lay on the grass it feels heavy and I can't move. Free me from this body, the color burns brown with dark limbs so tired and missing the weightless breadth of above.
2020
Inkjet print, etching
17h x 17w in
43.18h x 43.18w cm
Framed: 17 5/16h x 17 1/2w in
43.97h x 44.45w cm
Edition of 3, 2 APs