erin genia, smact ‘19 portfolio - may 2019 · 2019-05-24 · erin genia, smact ‘19 portfolio -...

Erin Genia, SMACT ‘19

Portfolio - May 2019

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Acoustic Tipi

60" x 60" x 74"

Mahogany, cow hide drums, acrylic, steel hardware, bungee cords, drum sticks

2018

The Swamp School, Lithuania Pavilion, La BiennaleArchitettura di Venezia, Venice, Italy

May - November, 2018

“Personal Structures” European Cultural Center, Palazzo Mora, 2019 Biennale Arte, Venice

May -November 2019

The tipi sound amplifier is a drum interface that invites people to create audible vibrations

which reverberate throughout space. The traditional tipi is a Dakota portable home structure

for an extended family, it is a shape of strength. In this piece, the tipi is scaled to the body,

and its contours have been stylized to encourage sound transmitting capabilities. It is home

to four sacred drums. The embedded drums are of different sizes, each playing a different

tone. The drums reside within the structure via tension support cords which enable the sound

to be amplified and harmonized, projecting upwards and outwards. The drums have the

Anpa o wicahnpi/ morningstar painted in white, yellow, black and red, representing the four

cardinal directions. Anpa o wicahnpi is symbol of Dakota philosophy and in this context,

represents our people and our ways of life that are indigenous to the land. The tipi structure

http://www.swamp.lt/

http://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2018/national-participations/lithuania



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resonates with the pure sound of the drum, directing it down into the ground and up into the

air, each beat a communication to the earth and cosmos. Acoustic Tipi is painted with a

scene from the story of Wakinyan/Thunderbirds and Unktehi/Water Serpent spirits who clash

in an epic battle from ancient times. Unktehi is a supernatural being who brings catastrophe

in the form of flooding, Wakinyan brings storms and atmospheric calamity. The war between

these supernatural beings is a way of describing the destruction of climate change through

Indigenous knowledge. Acoustic Tipi was built to occupy the Venice lagoon as a ground

zero site of climate change. The drum beats emanating from the structure can act as a sonic

prayer for our wetland ecosystems, existing between the worlds of the water and the land,

teeming with life, and increasingly threatened by human activity. The piece is a reminder of

the Dakota principle, mni wiconi – water is life, a reality that urgently needs to be recognized.



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Sound Vessels

Ceramic vessels, surface transducers, amplifier, mp3 player and soundscapes

2019

Sound Vessels is an installation of ceramic sculptures that transmit sounds. Using sound as a

material, this work explores how it can interact with objects, through the medium of earth, by

experimenting with various types of sounds and shapes. In Dakota philosophy, all things exist

within a continuum of life, and the foundational concept of mitakuye oyasin, that we are all

related, extends not only to other people, but also to animals, plants minerals, electricity, air

objects, and everything in existence. This piece illustrates this philosophy and concept by

linking the materiality of sound to form. Sound Vessels plays my heartbeat, a hand drum, a

rattle, fire, a train, liquid mud and spoken words in both Dakota and English languages. The

ceramic vessels are built to hold and transmit sound, rather than the usual use of clay vessels



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as containers for solids or liquids. Each vessel plays individual sound compositions, creating a

randomized orchestra of objects. Sound Vessels is supported by a grant from the Council for

the Arts at MIT, and the Program in Art, Culture and Technology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fWY0SlJSTM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9x2idM0cg9o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3fWY0SlJSTM





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Mitakuye Oyasin/ We Are All Related

November 24, 2018

US Pavilion "Dimensions of Citizenship"

La Biennale di Venezia

Biennale Architettura 2018

US Pavilion courtyard

Mitakuye Oyasin/ We Are All Related was a ceremonial performance centered on healing,

finding lost cultural knowledge, and telling the story of climate change through the lens of

the Dakota legend of the Wakinyan/ Thunderbirds and Unktehi/ Water Serpent spirits. The

epic battle between these supernatural beings is a way of describing the catastrophic

effects of climate change through Dakota knowledge.

The power of Dakota language, oral tradition, dance, and creative and artistic processes–

which have been obscured through centuries of US policies of genocide and assimilation of

Indigenous people–were expressed to call for a profound shift in the evolution of humanity

towards a creative, holistic consciousness.

Mitakuye Oyasin, in the context of the "Dimensions of Citizenship" exhibition at Venice

Architecture Biennale, is powerful because the concept, which is the basis of Dakota

philosophy, holds that we are relatives of not only our families and other people, but

animals, plants, rocks, air, electricity, water - which is life itself - and everything in existence,

connected by interrelationships in a continuum of life.

By connecting the concepts of body outward to the cosmos through the sound of the

drum, movement, and burning medicines, the ancestors and spirit were invited to the

space. My cousin, Adam Genia, an award-winning powwow singer and drummer provided

a song which was played on a sound vessel with the sound of a heartbeat.

Images of ancient glyphs were drawn on the site of this important US cultural embassy, using

a small quantity of canupa/ pipestone pigment. The images brought indigenous Dakota

presence to the site in an unbroken line, at an institution in the tradition of Worlds Fair-type

expos, which have had a historically troubled legacy for Indigenous people.

http://dimensionsofcitizenship.org/

https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2018

http://dimensionsofcitizenship.org/events/mitakuye-oyasin-slash-we-are-all-related/



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Earthling

Mask: acrylic and architectural model vegetation on canvas

2019

Human understanding has come far away from the reality that we are not separate from

the earth, we are the earth. How do our responsibilities to ourselves, each other and our

world change if this reality was the basis of our collective thought and action? Earthling is a

character that appears in various performance, both scripted an improvisational.



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Fourth World Flag

5’ x 8’

Hand-pieced ripstop nylon

2018

“The Fourth World is the name given to indigenous

peoples descended from a country’s aboriginal

population and who today are completely or

partly deprived of the right to their own territories

and its riches. The peoples of the Fourth World

have only limited influence or none at all in the

national state to which they belong” (George

Manuel, World Council of Indigenous Peoples).

Presented on this flag is powerful Dakota

iconography, the Morningstar, which signifies a

way of life that is deeply connected to the natural

world and teaches respect for relationships

between living systems. Many colors, some hand-

dyed, are pieced together to celebrate the

diversity of Indigenous peoples around the globe.

Promoting unity across peoples of the Fourth

World, it serves as a symbol to rally around while

working together for shared causes. Many

different kinds of people, many ways of thinking

and being make us stronger if we embrace our

differences as well as our similarities.

Figure 2. In Performance at US Pavilion, Venice Architecture Biennale

Figure 1. Installed in Lobby 7



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Artifact Trapped

Micaceous ceramic, wood, amplifier, surface transducers, mp3 player, soundscape

2019

In my museum research, I have come across hundreds of Dakota ancestral works that

remain trapped in museum collections, hidden away, inaccessible to our people. This piece

probes the boundary between museum culture and Indigenous perspectives by

challenging the Wunderkammer aesthetic. It asks how we can reconcile the Indigenous

reality that ancient artifacts have a life of their own and their own agency with the politics

of museum collection, preservation and display? The bowl is a ceremonial feast bowl

depicting Iya, the spirit of gluttony. Through sound, the piece “speaks” in Dakota and cries

out, to complicate the viewer’s perception of a museum artifact.



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After Powhatan’s Robe

Acrylic, gold leafed ceramic shells on curtain

60” x 75”

2018

Powhatan’s Mantle is an exquisite garment that ended up in the very first museum in the

world – as part of a collection that was a cabinet of curiosity. The piece is an incredibly

detailed culturally significant work, this piece is a response to the loss of Indigenous peoples

and cultures and the injustice of masterpieces ending up in the collections of colonizers.



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InVisible

Pieced organza

60” x 60”

2017

When worn as a shawl, InVisible provides a symbolic skin of protection against pervasive

cultural supremacy. The morningstar form is an expression of cultural power which is used

here to transform. Is white cultural supremacy, which expropriates and erases other cultures,

a translucent veil so permeating it's nearly invisible to those living under it? As a Dakota

person, I experience cultural supremacy as a tool of the dominant culture that sets itself as

the standard, forces assimilation and constantly perpetuates itself to reinforce structures

and institutions which maintain a limited picture of reality. The white gossamer fabric of this

shawl is nearly transparent, but as it moves, it reflects rays of light in a full spectrum of colors,

which affirms its self-possessed strength of presence. It is a reminder that other realities are

possible.



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Iĥpeya, Piyepićaśni

Ceramic vessels, topographic maps, and copper, coal, molybdenite and gold specimens

from the Harvard Mineralogical Collection, 2018

Dakota philosophy holds that humans are not separate from or greater than the earth and

its processes. With this in mind, how can we approach drastically changed landscapes

resulting from widespread human-caused environmental degradation? Once the sought-

after parts of the earth’s body are taken and processed into the essential elements that

make modern living possible what happens to the landscapes left behind? Using earth itself,

in the form of clay, vessel-like representations explore these contours. Iĥpeya, means to

discard/ throw away, and is used here to describe the increasing number of places on

earth that are spent, trashed, contaminated, detonated, destroyed. Piyepićaśni means

broken beyond repair/ unfixable, and in this context implicates Western philosophies of

separation from nature and the hierarchy of man which, compounded over hundreds of

years of dominance, have caused widespread ecological collapse and climate change.

We don’t have to look far to see the landscapes altered by modern living. What’s harder to

see is the imperative of remembering our deep relationship to the land we live on/ land we

are.



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Eclipse

MDF particle board, LEDs and acrylic

36” x 36”

2017

August 21, 2017 was the day of the solar eclipse. It was also the day I left Olympia,

Washington and drove over 3,000 miles with my three children to Medford, Massachusetts to

settle in and begin my studies at MIT. Before we departed on our journey that day, we

observed and reflected upon the awesome event. Inspired by images of the eclipse

corona, I created this piece using the Morningstar form. Layered surfaces, painted with the

colors of the four directions, render the unique play of light that occurs when heavenly

bodies align.

https://eringeniaportfolio.blogspot.com/2017/10/morningstar-form-expressed-through-

cnc.html

https://eringeniaportfolio.blogspot.com/2017/10/morningstar-form-expressed-through-cnc.html

https://eringeniaportfolio.blogspot.com/2017/10/morningstar-form-expressed-through-cnc.html



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Diaspora & Discord

MDF particle board, ribbon, wire, glass beads, screen printed fabric,

jingles, dentalium, disco ball motor

30” x 14” x 14”

2017

As a Dakota person living in the diaspora that was created as a result of the U.S- Dakota

War, I explore the confusing tangle of paths traversed between 33 places spanning the

Midwest, the Great Plains and into Canada that thousands of Dakota people traveled from

1862 and the 1880s. Using ribbons, jingles and dentalium used in creating powwow regalia, I

have created a column of vitality, which shows that, despite our separation and struggle

over generations after being forced from our sacred homeland of Minnesota, we remain a

people with our culture. As a mobile structure, the piece engages gravity and the air

currents of its surroundings, subtly moving with them. Beginning with a structural form of a

Morningstar, four arrows wind around the piece and each other, illustrating back-and-forth

paths taken across distance. The arrow’s points are made from silkscreened Morningstar

forms which have been cut into four pieces, representing our separation in all four

directions. The names of the 33 places Dakota people were moved to and from are written

upon the base Morningstar form. As the piece rotates, either from the wind or from the

motorized base, a beaded spiral radiates, signaling disorientation.



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Left: back view with projection

Right: front view

Morningstar Lightchamber

Mixed media: wood, lens, pvc pipe, Arduino boards, rgb LED, stepper motor,

epoxy composite, hardware, rockite, acrylic

16” x 22” x 24”

2018

Morningstar Lightchamber is an optical projection unit that transmits colored light through a

mirrored chamber crafted to the shape of an eight-pointed star. It’s programmable in all

colors of the RGB spectrum. The unit displays a kaleidoscopic image on the wall or other

surface at a distance of up to 8 meters away, and it can be adjusted to variable angles of

up to 60 degrees, to project on a ceiling. The unit has a programmable stepper motor and

belt attached to a PVC pipe which rotates the chamber. It rotates at two speeds, slow and

medium, it also accelerates, decelerates and rotates the opposite way. The piece

produces ambient colored light, projecting a powerful symbol of strength and beauty on a

variety of surfaces.

http://fab.cba.mit.edu/classes/863.17/CBA/people/Erin%20Genia/finalproject.html



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Anpa O Wicahnpi

Ripstop nylon

5’ x 35’

installed at Seattle Center, 2017-18

As an urban Dakota person, whose traditional home is far away, it’s rare to see images from

my culture reflected in local art. I know there are many people like me, living in a diaspora,

who are here as a result of the federal Relocation policy of the 1960s. This piece is an

homage to our journey and a shout out to fellow Oceti Sakowin, Great Sioux Nation people

who reside in the Pacific Northwest. This piece activated the space in a lighthearted way

while also carrying a message that diversity is beautiful and pays homage to urban Native

people’s resilience through vibrant cultural expression.



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Canupa Iyan – Bdote Pilgrimmage, 2017

"Canupa Inyan: Researching the Carvings of My Ancestors," is an ongoing project I am

working on, where I document catlinite pieces in museum collections in order to inform my

work as an artist. Since 2015, I have worked with ancestral objects at the Washington State

History Museum, the Burke Museum, the National Museum of

Natural History, the Minnesota Historical Society and now, NMAI.

Through this work, I have I created new pieces of artwork based

on historical pieces and traditional forms. I created drawings and

diagrams of pieces and I began writing on the subject of

pipestone and the significance of this stone for my people. I work

with my son, Sam to teach him how to carve the stone. I create

traditional pipestone form mock-ups using clay and I make pipes

for use in ceremony. One of the pieces I created is a series of

small faces. This one, Girl with a Dimple, I made as a happy, smiling little girl to counter the

ubiquitous images we see of the stoic Indian. When in Minneapolis for the First Peoples Fund

Convening, I made a pilgrimage to Bdote, on Pike Island, which is a place that is our sacred

place of origin at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers. It is also a place of

great tragedy, since our people were kept in an internment camp there through the winter

of 1862 -3 before being banished from our homeland. Many people died that winter on the

island. I wanted to bring Girl with a Dimple there are place her in the ground as an offering

to the ancestors who suffered there and also as a way to reclaim the space for our Dakota

people, because it is also the site of Fort Snelling.



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Sun Gourd, Anpa Wi

Glazed terracotta, gourd, acrylic, light fixture

4” x 4 ½” x 3½”

2016

Anpa Wi is the sun and the peacemaker in Dakota culture. In depicting the sun as a being,

this piece highlights the paradigmatic dissonance between Western and Indigenous

cultures, in which indigenous cultures believe in the inherent life of all aspects of the

universe.



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Facing/ Not Facing: Toxic Devastation From Oil

Glazed terracotta, brass, plaster, wood, acrylic

18” x 12” x 3”

2016

Broken pipelines delineate the four directions, the spill reaches out to all corners of the

earth. At the heart of the crisis are humans who are both responsible for the mess and

endangered by it.



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Open Pit Gold Mine Vessel

Raku-fired clay and gold leaf

15.25” x 15.5” x 5”

2015

This slab-built, raku-fired vessel was made during an International Indigenous Artists’

Gathering in New Zealand. It was created to highlight harmful resource extraction practices

that damage the land and people. It broke in several pieces during the trip home to

Washington. I put the pieces back together, using gold leaf to highlight the cracks and

mimic gold veins emerging from the rock. During this process, I learned about the Japanese

method, kintsugi, the art of repairing pottery and the belief that the piece is more beautiful

for having been broken. Won “Best of Show” at In the Spirit: Contemporary Native Arts

Exhibit, Washington State History Museum, Tacoma, Washington in 2015.



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Blood Quantum Countdown

Ceramic, acrylic on canvas, plaster, silver, clock parts

24” x 24” x 2”

2011

Issues surrounding indigenous identity and the Western-imposed blood quantum system are

explored with two different varieties of clay and a working clock. Like the construct of time

which was imposed through colonization, blood quantum has imprinted itself upon our

collective psyche. The image of lightning, which instantly attracts the attention of all who

see it flash, draws attention to the dangers of basing our identity upon racist instruments. The

piece warns that continuing its use leads to a countdown to our extinction as indigenous

peoples.



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Self-Decolonization: On the Dakota Uprising

Terracotta, plaster, acrylic, cedar, maps,

21” x 24”

2010

This piece is a symbolic attack on an icon of imperialism—Abraham Lincoln, who presided

over the largest mass execution in United States history—of 38 Dakota men who took part in

the 1862 Dakota Uprising. It is a window into the past that revisits a hidden history of how this

country came to be what it is and revises landscapes to reflect our ever-present ancestors. I

am a descendant of survivors of genocide, ethnic cleansing, expulsion, relocation, and

internment. This piece revisits a painful past whose legacy is still with us. The piece explores

the concept of blood money and subverts the ideals of American mythology while asking,

“Who are my heroes?” Part of a series called Self-Decolonization I which the act of creating

works is a potent vehicle for decolonizing my own mind and bringing sanity to my life. In

learning the truth about my history and trying to make sense of my world, I seek to shed

values that have been imposed on me and reclaim those that are my birthright.



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Olympia-Rafah Solidarity Mural Project

30’ x 50’ x 1’

2011

A project of the Rachel Corrie Foundation, I worked as a mural production coordinator to

organize community outreach workshops to create clay tiles, which line the bottom of the

mural. The mural brought together local community groups, national and international

groups and artists to create a leaf on the giant tree.



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Mobile Spill Response

36” x 15” x 15”

Clay, found items, vinyl, acrylic

2016

Made for the exhibit, “Protect the Sacred: Native Artists for Standing Rock,” at Spaceworks

Gallery in Tacoma, this piece was made to highlight the inevitability of oil spills, and the

environmental destruction that that occurs when pipelines are constructed.



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Wakinyan speaks

Micaceous clay, glaze, brass, acrylic, wood

30” x 30” x 5”

2016

With a red earth palette, I used clay to render a storm: clouds, and whirlwinds show the

atmospheric turbulence caused by climate change and its effects on earth. A human face

that is caught up in the fray asks what role people have played in creating this earth crisis.

Streaks of clear glaze and acrylic bring rain. A lightning bolt at the center, which draws the

attention of all who see it flash, captures the moment the Wakinyan, or Thunderbeings,

speak a warning.



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Dakota in the Pacific Northwest

Cotton, ribbon, jingles, clay, wire, found object

65” x 52” x 52”

2017

I’m a Dakota in the Pacific Northwest, living in the diaspora that was created as a result of

the Dakota War of 1862, when our people were exiled from our homeland of Minnesota.

The Indian Relocation Act further dispersed our people, from reservations around the

Midwest to cities around the country. Suspended from a cascade of rain jingles and fluffy

clouds, the Morningstar form embodies the beauty and resilience of our people, even when

far from home.



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Transformation Fish, Swimming Together Installation

Micaceous clay and slip

19” x 7” x 3”

2015

This piece depicts a scene from a story I once heard but can’t remember. It shows the

moment a man transforms into a pickerel. It’s a cautionary tale, but the lesson has escaped

me. This work is about remembering stories, forgetting stories, never knowing the story. The

fish was sculpted in three separate parts to show the disconnection I often feel from my

culture, as one who lives far from my home, as a product of assimilation. Part of a

forthcoming permanent installation, “Swimming Together” at The Evergreen State College

Indigenous Arts Campus. “Swimming Together” is a collaborative piece created by

indigenous artists and led by Nora Naranjo Morse (Tewa). It can be seen below as installed

at Sgwigwial?txw at 20: Building upon the Past, Visioning into the Future, The Longhouse

Education and Cultural Center 20th Anniversary Exhibition, Evergreen Gallery, The Evergreen

State College, Olympia, Washington.

erin genia, smact ‘19 portfolio - may 2019 · 2019-05-24 · erin genia, smact ‘19 portfolio -...

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