In this exhibition, artist Skawennati (Mohawk, Turtle clan) gathers a number of works which, together, trace a line from our place of origin somewhere in the heavens to the virtual realm, one of the newest territories on Earth. The line sometimes curves, sometimes becomes invisible, but along it are Onkwehonwe - Indigenous people - alive and kicking. From Skyworld to Cyberspace is a result of Skawennati's continuous investigation of cultural construction, contemporary Indigenous self-representation is cyberspace, and of our relationships with the digital world.
This show is curated by Matthew Ryan Smith and circulated by McIntosh Gallery (Western University) and ELLEPHANT.
This talk and closing reception coincides with the AUArts Gallery Crawl.
5-6pm - Closing Reception at IKG
5:30pm - AUArts Gallery Crawl (throughout the entire school)
Tues, Wed & Fri: 11 - 6 PM
Thurs, 11 - 7 PM
Sat: 12-4 PM
Closed on Sundays, Mondays and statutory holidays
Tom Porter, Akwesasne Mohawk Elder, talks about Ohenten Kariwatekwen, also known as the thanksgiving address.
Exhibition catalogue for 2022-23 exhibition at Julia Stoschek Foundation on the relationship between gaming and time-based media art.
Collection of essays covering discussions involving Indigenous people from Aotearoa, Australia, North America and the Pacific. Published by The Initiative for Indigenous Futures / Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), 2020.
from Publisher's website:
Nominated for the 2018 International Center of Photography Infinity Award in Critical Writing and Research
In what ways could we imagine a world different from the one in which we currently live?
This is the question addressed by the essays and conversations in Futures and Fictions, which explore possibilities for a different “political imaginary”.
Skawennati: from skyworld to cyberspace by 
Iroquois Creation Story by 
Snow Crash by 
This Place : 150 Years Retold by 
Making virtual worlds Linden Lab and Second Life by 
An Indigenous Present by 
Shelley Niro: 500 year itch by 
Land back : Biennale d'art contemporain autochtone 2022 = Contemporary Native Art Biennial 2022 by 
Indigenous Media Arts in Canada by 
The future imaginary in indigenous North American arts and literatures by 
Unsettling Canadian Art History by 
YWY, Searching for a Character Between Future Worlds by Recorded talk featuring scholar Grace Dillon and artist Suzanne Kite exploring "different aspects of Indigenous artistic and scientific engagements with reality to delve for alternative worlds, futures, and temporalities, which will be able to account for a more-than-human endurance through time". From November 12, 2021 as part of Afro and Indigenous Futures program presented by the Program in Liberal Studies and the Liberal Studies Student Association at The New School for Social Research.
Skawennati investigates history, the future, and change from her perspective as an urban Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) woman and as a cyberpunk avatar. Her artistic practice questions our relationships with technology and highlights Indigenous people in the future. Her machinimas and machinimagraphs, textiles and sculpture have been presented internationally and collected by the National Gallery of Canada, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal and the Thoma Foundation, among others.
Recipient of a 2022 Hewlett 50 Arts Commissions Grant and an Honorary Doctorate from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, she is also a founding board member of daphne, Montreal’s first Indigenous artist-run centre. She co-founded and co-directs Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research-creation network based at Concordia University, where she received her BFA. Originally from Kahnawà:ke Mohawk Territory, Skawennati resides in Montreal. She is represented by ELLEPHANT.
This artist talk was recorded on April 19, 2023 in conjunction with the exhibition, Message From Our Planet, on view at the University of Minnesota's Weisman Art Museum February 10 – May 14, 2023.
She Falls For Ages (from Obx Labs on Vimeo) a machinima by Skawennati
Excerpt from artist website:
This sci-fi retelling of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) creation story reimagines Sky World as a futuristic, utopic space and Sky Woman as a brave astronaut and world-builder.
“Machinima, N.” Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford UP, July 2023.
Skawennati. Celestial Tree. 2017. Machinimagraph from She Falls for Ages; inkjet print 46.5” x 46.5”, Edition 3 of 3 + 1 AP.
