Towards the Setting Sun (2016-ongoing archive)
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Installation includes Audio:
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Statement
Towards the Setting Sun explores questions of location, displacement, Manifest Destiny, the gallery as a psychic medium, and the intersection of non-fiction and fantasy. Multiple narratives gathered from both archive and contemporary sources prevent a linear reading of the work. More question than answer, Towards the Setting Sun wonders where do we go from here? What do we make
of our conflicting narratives that shape national conversation as well as local policy. What can naming do to resolve territorial conflict and can collaboration begin to decolonize our relationships? Can a gallery hold these questions or does location predetermine power?
This growing collection of work originated from a standoff between two photographs, one from 1878 located in Lawrence, Kansas, a hub for settlers moving West as well as a strong-hold against Westward expansion of slavery. At this point in history both the 44-caliber rifle and barbed wire had just been invented. The other photograph is a self-portrait taken on the Yuba River at the edge of 10,000 acres of desecrated land from the gold mining operations of the mid 1800's. In 1893, this area began to be dredged to mitigate the environmental disaster. The land is owned by both the Bureau of Land Management, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and Wester Aggregate mine company who is still trying to get at an estimated fifteen billion dollars worth of gold at the site. Because of the tremendous upheaval of the land and the movement of the river it is unclear where these boundaries lie.
The voice of local Ohlone elder Charlene Sul, intermittently grounds the listener with a meditation on place and healing the land around us, wherever we are. The text on the wall is a short fantasy drawn from one of the unknown characters in the 1878 photograph. I was drawn to her, a woman still divining while in the water; a fitting gesture for my questions. She became a siren, promising answers yet disappearing when I drew near, just as her stick appeared solid but clearly became a scratch on the photograph upon
further investigation. She reappears on the opposite wall of the installation, transformed in low relief, in a reflective medium glowing only when a flash bulb or street light shines on her--visible from the street, guiding us out the window.
Below her, a Diné medicine wheel offering to the Spring Equinox by Tomahawk GreyEyes grounds the space. Behind the medicine wheel, a tipped over pedestal offers itself as a bench; the insides exposed, now holding a Red Cedar smudge and North/Winter offering of dried Strawberry Tree fruit--a Mediterranean cousin of the native Pacific Madrone. To the East, jasmine blossoms signal Spring. To the South, tobacco grown in Summer from seeds of my second harvest and to the West, marigolds from my community garden in West Oakland
honor Fall and a return to the land of our ancestors.
Towards the Setting Sun explores questions of location, displacement, Manifest Destiny, the gallery as a psychic medium, and the intersection of non-fiction and fantasy. Multiple narratives gathered from both archive and contemporary sources prevent a linear reading of the work. More question than answer, Towards the Setting Sun wonders where do we go from here? What do we make
of our conflicting narratives that shape national conversation as well as local policy. What can naming do to resolve territorial conflict and can collaboration begin to decolonize our relationships? Can a gallery hold these questions or does location predetermine power?
This growing collection of work originated from a standoff between two photographs, one from 1878 located in Lawrence, Kansas, a hub for settlers moving West as well as a strong-hold against Westward expansion of slavery. At this point in history both the 44-caliber rifle and barbed wire had just been invented. The other photograph is a self-portrait taken on the Yuba River at the edge of 10,000 acres of desecrated land from the gold mining operations of the mid 1800's. In 1893, this area began to be dredged to mitigate the environmental disaster. The land is owned by both the Bureau of Land Management, the US Army Corps of Engineers, and Wester Aggregate mine company who is still trying to get at an estimated fifteen billion dollars worth of gold at the site. Because of the tremendous upheaval of the land and the movement of the river it is unclear where these boundaries lie.
The voice of local Ohlone elder Charlene Sul, intermittently grounds the listener with a meditation on place and healing the land around us, wherever we are. The text on the wall is a short fantasy drawn from one of the unknown characters in the 1878 photograph. I was drawn to her, a woman still divining while in the water; a fitting gesture for my questions. She became a siren, promising answers yet disappearing when I drew near, just as her stick appeared solid but clearly became a scratch on the photograph upon
further investigation. She reappears on the opposite wall of the installation, transformed in low relief, in a reflective medium glowing only when a flash bulb or street light shines on her--visible from the street, guiding us out the window.
Below her, a Diné medicine wheel offering to the Spring Equinox by Tomahawk GreyEyes grounds the space. Behind the medicine wheel, a tipped over pedestal offers itself as a bench; the insides exposed, now holding a Red Cedar smudge and North/Winter offering of dried Strawberry Tree fruit--a Mediterranean cousin of the native Pacific Madrone. To the East, jasmine blossoms signal Spring. To the South, tobacco grown in Summer from seeds of my second harvest and to the West, marigolds from my community garden in West Oakland
honor Fall and a return to the land of our ancestors.
