Vigil- The Land Remembers 2018- Ongoing

Performance/ Intervention held at Silo City, Buffalo, NY. The USA.

As part of an ongoing performance series, 155 pounds of cement mixed with water from the local landscape to create a vigil, a memorialization space to grieve the ongoing epidemic of violence against MMIWG2+ and all Indigenous Peoples Turtle Island around the globe.
One hundred fifty-five pounds is a personal number, the amount of which my mother weighed upon her death.

Within the first undertaking of this performance, I was interested in using the natural landscape at Silo City in Buffalo, NY. Using this puddle now reformed into a new form wanted it to resemble an unmarked gravesite.

I used this site to host interventions of giving remembrance, gratitude, and awareness to the public about the epidemic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women in North America. I've invited the public to join in my smudging, giving thanks, and open discussions about these important subjects. Instead of functioning as a lecture space, I want to foster the area as a respectful memorial and honest, open, and genuine discussion platform. Most importantly, it is a space to respect and pay homage to these women. The Live Performance was held on Seneca and Haudenosaunee land at the Silo City in Buffalo, NY. The USA. In the hope of striking a conversation and awareness about Missing and Murdered Indigenous women across North America.

Buffalo is the original territory of the Seneca Nation, a member of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy. The Dish covers this territory with the One Spoon Treaty of Peace and Friendship, a pledge to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes. It is also covered by the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua between the United States Government and the Six Nations Confederacy, which further affirmed the Haudenosaunee's land rights and sovereignty in the State of New York. Today, this region is still the home to the Haudenosaunee people. I am so grateful for visiting, getting to know, spending time, and sharing ideas within this territory. I am thankful for the Traditional Knowledge Keepers and Elders, and I recognize the land, its gifts and lessons, and the territory I reside in.


Documention done in part by the photographer Vanessa Fortin and Erik Sirke