Subterranean Moon
Total run time: 29:45
HD video, stereo, 2-channel, synchronous loop
Edition of 3, 2 AP
In this two-channel video, verses from the poem, Denizens of Hell, permeate scenes from a powwow outside of Seattle organized for the upcoming feature film, Powwow People. Deftly emceed by Ruben Little Head who guides the viewer and the audience through a 30 minute long take of a Northern Traditional dance special. The footage in the second channel is abstracted by one of Hopinka’s signature treatments, a formalistic technique in dialogue with ethnopoetic documentation and
representation employed in I’ll Remember You as You Were, not as What You’ll Become. For Hopinka, the confluence of the poetic verse and the movement of his embodied camera is a vehicle for relating to and listening to the beings and ancestors who haven’t been repatriated by museums and institutions, all the while questioning different forms of confinement that they must contend with.
- Julie Niemi