Ecologies of Displacement

Artist Statements

Questions for the Settler State 

Using an archival map of the Indigenous settlements in what we now call Los Angeles during the Portola Expedition of 1769, this piece asks us to consider the implications of building a state on unceded Indigenous land. As an artist with training as a historian and cultural studies scholar, I am interested in understanding my, and our, place in the history of this form of displacement and erasure, and find that archival resources such as this one help us to see history in ways that exceed traditional historical pedagogy and notions of art as a purely formal pursuit. In my practice, I strive to articulate a form of art that functions as a modality of social inquiry. For this exhibit, I wanted visitors to consider the complicated history of this place we now call California, before we consider the notion of an independent republic. Given that Los Angeles has the largest urban Indigenous population in the nation, I find that such questions help us to reconsider the ongoing political, historical, and cultural erasure of Indigenous peoples. 

Seeds of Hope: The Past is the Future 

The current wildfires ravaging the US West Coast, and which are a product of climate change, remind us that our relationship to the land and each other is rooted in a history that dates back to the colonial encounter, when Indigenous "Others" and the natural environment were seen as something to be dominated and controlled. How we treat each other, the land, and the natural environment are all interconnected. If FREESTATE asks us to imagine a California that has become an independent republic, I ask viewers to first contend with our complicated colonial history. The names that flank the sculptural installation of a burned-out tree sprouting golden leaves and acorns (a reference to Indigenous people who relied on this seed for sustenance) are a non-comprehensive and ongoing list of names of Indigenous peoples in what we now call California at the moment of the colonial encounter.  Many of these tribal groups faced genocidal killings, and all have lost rights to their ancestral land, cultural and spiritual practices, and identities through state policies and Western expansion. I posit that in order to move forward and imagine a radical future, we must first acknowledge this troubled past. The questions included in this piece function to implicate us in the settler colonial project, and the acorns sprouting from the burned-out tree remind us that there is still hope for a better future; one where people and the natural environment can live in better harmony. They also remind us that Indigenous people's practices of land stewardship, rooted in a reciprocal relationship where we take care of the land and the land takes care of us, offer models for thinking about how to articulate a future that learns from our Indigenous neighbors.