Intro

0:47

I’m Sarah see stream I’m a hana saku s– tribal member artist and educator I live

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in Portland and I’m represented at Ogden gallery hi i’m tariqa powell with sight line institute a seattle-based

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sustainability Policy Research Center my research focuses on fossil fuel

1:05

infrastructure my research supports what we call the thin green line which is the

1:10

Pacific Northwest’s resistance to the building out of fossil fuel infrastructure in our region my name is

Maryann Nicholson

1:17

Maryann Nicholson and Dana you know from

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Nations and I’m an artist and activist

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I’ve been part of this ongoing project between our gallery of Greater Victoria

1:34

and indigenous artists in Portland for a

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number of years we’ve been developing this around the issue of water and to

Nicole Stonebridge

1:53

begin this program I want to extend our appreciation and gratitude to be gathered here on the traditional

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territory of the Chinook and Grand Ronde and to be guests on this territory and we have fortuitously this amazing

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backdrop of work by Umatilla artist James lavador so such great timing that

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this work is out for us to be having this conversation here so my name is Nicole Stonebridge I’m the curator of

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engagement at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria up in DC I’m of British and

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Norwegian descent my colleagues Michelle Jake’s and Mary Ann Nicholson we live

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and work and our guests on the territory of the livonian people in Victoria BC and we’re on an island surrounded by

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water so we talk about I want to thank Blake shell and Disjecta

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for hosting us and helping this this happen here and collaborating with the arteries in

2:47

Victoria and for all of you to be here thank you for coming so this

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conversation we are water is part of an ongoing project called wobbly Twala the

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pervasiveness of water or cannot go against the tide so this is a project we’ve been working on with artist Marion

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Nicholson it’s a collaborative cross-cultural process of culinary project looking at issues related to

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water with an approach that privileges an indigenous worldview as a cultural

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institution where Michelle and I work this allows us to address the colonial structures that we function in and it

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helps us to appreciate the interconnectedness of how water issues play a role in all aspects of our lives

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and so amongst all of us here today we’ll be approaching this from many perspectives and many views and so I

Victoria Frangipani

3:35

hope we can all be as open as possible in that process and I just wanted to share one of our colleagues in Victoria

3:42

frangipani who’s an indigenous curator and artist she shared with us her five

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indigenous perspectives for how she does her work and I think those are really important ones that we can kind of all think about when we’re doing this kind

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of work so it’s respect responsibility relationality relevance and reciprocity

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so I think those are all really key things in the work that we’re doing and I think in Western European ways of

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thinking about art it has its own category but in many cultures what we think of as art are cultural practices

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customs and rituals of daily life and so as a way to frame the work we’re doing

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in this conversation to see the interconnectedness of things helps us to think about the many types

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of practices disciplines and ways of being as we explore the questions how to

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water issues impact our lives and the place that we live so I just want to

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introduce first the kind of facilitators that will be in this program so first we

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have like she’ll the director of distract us you wanna introduce yourself hi yes welcome thank you for coming

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I am the new executive director here at Disjecta since April and I have been

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really excited about being here at Disjecta both for the Contemporary Art

5:01

programming and specifically for the potential for greater community

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conversations to happen here in this space and I feel really fortunate that

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this is one of the first ones that were able to put together here so yes thank

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you for being here and welcome

5:32

Vancouver Island I been there for almost five years as the chief curator but I

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moved to in territory from Toronto

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Toronto which is on lands that are the traditional territories of the

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Haudenosaunee people more recently the territory of the Mississauga’s of new

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credit but that said Toronto was a place

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that was a bit of a mecca for artists from all cultural backgrounds including

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indigenous artists so it was interesting the the conversations that I’m used to

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participating in in my experience working in Toronto at the Art Gallery of Ontario were often about you know I

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guess what you would call the urban Indian and how those concerns related to

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larger conversations about identity that interconnected with a lot of

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Unity’s so it’s been a pretty remarkable experience for me to move west to the

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west coast where I have the

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individuals and that’s really created shift the

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conversation for me so I have to admit that I’m I’m here as a little bit of an

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interloper Nicole is the person to really taking a lead on the project from

7:17

our institution but I’m really really keen on learning how this kind of

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conversation and maybe displace the more traditional or conventional kinds of

7:30

exhibitions and programs that

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it’s used to do and so for me this is a learning experience and a kind of

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opportunity to figure out how relationships between artists and issues

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and our communities

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public institution thank you and so we’re going to have this we

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invited guests introduce themselves and then after that we’ll open it up and stir on some of the ideas that come up

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in their introduction so we’re going to start with Hanna’s whose artist educator and theorists Eastham hi guys it’s

Hanna Eastham

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really nice to see you it’s an honor to be sitting up here with these folks I

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got to meet our First Nations guests in 2015 at the Museum of Contemporary

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crafts we were doing a talk there and we were very lucky to have them in the audience so this is kind of following

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through with the conversation that we’ve been working on for a couple years now it’s also really exciting to be doing

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something at dis Jeptha in the new kind of direction that we’re gonna be working

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on here in Portland and to be sitting in front of lavador of course is a really

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exciting thing so do you want me to go more into thank you sure maybe just a

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little bit about the project okay as she

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mentioned I’m an artist and educator I started as a painter but I also work in

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institutional reform in education so when dr. dark came on at the Portland

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Art Museum she hired me as a consultant and so through my work with them I

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started to have really privileged access to collections and knowledge holders see

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through that work I started studying the traditional weaving of my culture in

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order to create a weaving program for my tribe our weaving tradition has been

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hibernating since the 1850s and so our generation is doing a lot of cultural

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reclamation and so as an artist and educator it kind of followed suit that I would

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I would work in that vein so yeah and then that brings me into active istic

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work and the way that my work can serve water protection is through my students

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so my students work for the tribe they

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work in Natural Resources so when I teach them weaving practices then they

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can take that back into the work that they do so when I teach them the different

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plants that we use for weaving which all go in the water then they take that back

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in and we can use that information to help protect the resources politically

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yeah and our next guest is from Seattle so tareka Powell is the senior research

Tareka Powell

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associate with these sightline Institute hi everybody thank you for being here

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this evening I work for sightline Institute it’s a sustainability Policy Research Center in Seattle in plainer

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language to think-tank and we work on a number of issues of sustainability in

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Cascadian that includes Washington Oregon and BC so we do environmental

11:13

sustainability affordable housing and research on improving our democracy in

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my research focuses on fossil fuel infrastructure in researching a lot of the proposals for large export terminals

11:29

here in the Pacific Northwest and we’ve seen an onslaught of that in the past ten years where the fossil fuel industry

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is basically trying to turn this region into the new Gulf Coast we have a lot of

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oil and natural gas resources and coal

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resources in the Rocky Mountain region and in the interior of Canada where the

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quickest shipping route to get those materials to Asian ports would be through ports in the Pacific Northwest

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so the fossil fuels aren’t located here we would just kind of be the place where

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the refiner eternam will terminate should be located and we so we wouldn’t be getting very many benefits from this

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and we would be taking on the risks of pollution and water consumption one of

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the other major concerns is that the the reason there is a surplus of materials that are that they’re trying to ship

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through this region is because of fracking about two-thirds of the natural

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gas that is produced in the u.s. now comes from fracking and so in in terms

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of getting those terminals built that would just increase those processes really having detrimental impacts to

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people all along the supply chain and one of the things that we’ve seen and I

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think that we’ve seen historically is that indigenous communities are some of

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the communities that are most strongly impacted whether it’s through the takings of land or where the pipelines

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are located and all the way down to who’s impacted if an incident happens

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when what we know here in this region is for example if you have an oil spill indigenous communities are usually the

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first people that respond especially when terminals or pipelines are located remotely because they’re the

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only ones out there and so one of the things that we have been trying to do is to work with tribes and First Nations to

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bring out more information about what those impacts would be and then we also

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have from Victoria so I would say no artists Mary Ann Nichols okay it’s an

Mary Ann Nichols

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honor to be here tonight and thank you for coming my English name is Mary and Nicholson my qua quality Ms Eloqua and

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I’m from the Moose comedy no of the park you up and the park you up people live

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kind of central coast of British Columbia those are our territories but I like I make my home in Victoria right

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now we’ve I’m an artist that’s kind of I

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guess how I make my living but I’m also kind of a political activist and the

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community that I come from Kingdom is in its original location from like our very

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beginning origin stories and I partly grew up there and I saw so many changes happening in the land that it was it

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wasn’t that I can aim to be political or activist it was just something that you

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know needed to kind of be be there’s as as a reaction to what

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was going on around us so we’ve seen a lot of changes happening in our territories and one of the things that

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we’ve been fighting recently as the fish farms so within the most knocked out and

15:02

out territories within the broken archipelago we have the largest number of fish farms and all of BC and so last

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year we were actively protesting the presence of these fish farms and that the government Canadian government wants

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to increase increase those farms the number of those farms within our territories and it’s all without our

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consent because we haven’t agreed to any of it and we’re actually adamantly opposed to it so right now we’re actively you know strategizing as to how

15:31

how do we respond to this

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have fish-farming incursion within our chair choice and another thing that

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happened say within the last six months was that there was a diesel spill on one

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of these farms and it was really interesting to us to see the reaction because we are in our nation sent out

15:58

helicopters right away to monitor what was happening but the response on the on

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the part of the government and the industry involved Cermak was very dismal so it what gave

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us an indication as to kind of what the general situation is for the coast and

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and kind of what the what the threats are to the environment that exists

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yeah so I’ll leave it at that for now thank you so the conversation up now and

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I mean are there right off right off the bat are there any questions from the audience or more information that you’re

16:41

wanting to hear from the what’s the focus I mean as far as how are you gonna

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calculate the issues on political or

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logistics or how are we the issues related to like water yeah well in it

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the thing we we do realize this is a huge topic and this is what I we’re having these program it’s huge it’s it’s

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so kind of overwhelming my my questions what’s how we wrote it how do we go to narrow the focus well we’re not

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narrowing it at the moment at this point we want to keep it open so that we you

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know I think the people we’ve invited today are looking at I mean at this

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point we’re looking at the Pacific Northwest in particular but the scope of the project will will expand eventually

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the way that just to give a bit of context of why this program is happening

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well Bella will be an exhibition in the future down the road at our art gallery but the way that we’re building it is

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we’re doing a series of pre programs so the research and the development of the project it will be done really transparently and with a lot of

17:51

collaboration so what this really is is a way to just in an informal way with

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some you know specific kind of aspects of research that these individuals are doing for us to talk about it and how

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that might personally be impacting each other so it may be from a political perspective

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from a scientific perspective as an artist as a community you know somebody who’s advocating for their communities

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so it will be coming from a lot of different perspectives so we’re at this point it is really open so that we’re

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casting a wide net so to speak to see what we can bring in I wonder if I could

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ask a question that maybe ties together and we all of us got together yesterday

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and we were having dinner and a conversation and there were many things that were said that stayed with but

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something that I’ve been thinking about tarika you were talking about how when

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you put your information together once you’ve researched an issue

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sometimes we are speaking to you’re putting the information together for

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communities that are in a bit of an emotional state because they’ve been

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hearing a project that is going to create jobs for them and you you mentioned something

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you said that you have to be creative and come up with a way

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which your position that

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emotional so to me they’re talking about

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you’re all talking about information and

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maybe for tariqa it mainly manifests as

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and for Sara and manifests as art but somehow politics

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knowledge all ties together and it’s very

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necessary

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maybe to Rica well what we were talking about yesterday is that as I was saying

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some of the projects that have been proposed here would be the largest terminal of their size in the world we’ve seen proposals in the Pacific

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Northwest for the largest coal terminal in the world the largest methanol refinery in the world was proposed in

20:38

Tacoma it would have used 10 million gallons of water per day it would have produced

20:44

over a million gallons of wastewater per day the message that they were giving

20:51

people when they came to Tacoma is the same message that terminals give to

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people when they come to any city typically they there they’re sort of

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selection process includes well what would be a good port a good easy port that can accommodate our ships but also

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what would be an area where we think a lot of resistance and so what you find is that these these terminals are often

21:15

proposed in cities where there are not a lot of job opportunities for people and

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so they lead with the message of jobs even if the this massive terminal is

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only gonna have 12 jobs well everybody who’s unemployed imagines that they might be one of those people who can get

21:33

that job so that’s an emotional message people need to be able to feed their family and so then I look at the

21:39

terminal and I say oh my goodness it’s gonna use 10 million gallons of water per day it’s gonna produce over a

21:45

million gallons of wastewater per day it’s gonna produce you know diesel particulate matter and you know then I

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do a piece of research that has you know a hundred citations for five pages if I

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have to make that interesting to someone who will want to read it because I’m going up against a very tough message

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which is jobs and you know for me to say well it’s only 12

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jobs well that’s still 12 jobs so so what I really have to do is to convey to

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people the message on the same lines of what these people are doing which is whether they’re what are your what are

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the values of this community what are the things that they care about and in the Pacific Northwest our region has for

22:27

a very long time been a global model of sustainability and that’s something that we’re proud of in this region we don’t

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want to be the new Gulf Coast it’s just that it’s just that who we are that’s not where we want to go we want to be a

22:39

leader in sustainability and so really what I try to do is lead with a message

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that focuses on what people’s values are and then I once I have been able to

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reach them on the level of our shared values then I give them the facts because you know then they’re ready to

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listen to what I’m saying and one of the things that relates to the work that we

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do with tribes in this region is that for example we we’ve done some research

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for the Quinault tribe at Grays Harbor where they have seen proposals for three

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three large oil terminals I believe at this point only one is still standing

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fossil fuel projects don’t have a good track record for actually getting through in the Pacific Northwest but we

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still are seeing an onslaught for example just in BC they have 20 proposals for fracked liquefied gas

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projects that would about half of them would be each bigger than the biggest one that already exists in the world if

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the projects went through it with BB c–‘s emissions so these liquefied natural gas projects

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would produce the same amount of emissions as every other process in the

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state NBC so in order so one of the things that we

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have done like with the quintile tribe is to look at well what has been the history of oil in this region and how

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has it affected that tribe in the past and I was telling these guys yesterday that one of the biggest oil spills in

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the history of Washington State happened right outside of Grays Harbor and so

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we’ll really look at what would be the impacts to that tribe if there was an

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oil spill of the type of oil that is being transported there would affect not just their fishing industry which is

24:36

their primary industry but also cultural traditions such as the plants that grow in the water that are used for weaving

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well they wouldn’t be able to harvest those for some years and so that’s how my my work as kind of a nerdy policy

24:50

wonk really comes into play with the real-world applications of lives you

24:59

spend much time looking at it’s been tapping them in the dissipate or an area with the Georgia project yes I think

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that’s a that is a microcosm of what’s happening regionally and how different

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political factions are uniting against the fossil fuel industry because they

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understand that the real money down there is tourism and fishing and this will destroy all that well that’s

25:24

another thing well you have that you have to balance one of the things that we bring up is that say we did build

25:31

this terminal that would give us 12 to 15 jobs well what would be the impacts of this

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terminal on the other jobs that already exist in the region tourism and fishing which are very important to people and

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and so part of what I do is pointing out like the balance that you have to weigh

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but yes I have been looking at the Jordan Cove proposal my sort of

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specialty is liquefied natural gas which is kind of a complex topic right because

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first of all people already have a really positive view of natural gas it has the word natural in it right there

26:07

it sounds natural it must be good and so it’s actually not like I was saying most

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of the natural gas that we have today in both the US and in Canada comes from

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fracking it’s a very destructive process very harmful to the communities that are around it and what you find is that a

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lot of people even though they think of natural gas as clean when you talk to

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them about fracking and fracked gas they know that that is not clean and so you

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really have to overcome that messaging because I think people’s perceptions of

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natural gas is one of the really first successful forms of greenwashing where you have something that is it’s

26:50

not very clean or safe or healthy but people have this impression that it is

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and and you know once upon a time natural gas used to be better than it is now when it when fracking wasn’t a part

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of the process but one of the issues with fracking is that it uses a tremendous amount of fresh water that

27:07

are needed by for other uses in the community and then it produces a tremendous amount of wastewater that is

27:14

so toxic there’s really nowhere you can dispose of it so so we have what we call

27:19

injection wells which is basically they dig a well out in the middle of nowhere and dump the waste water in there and

27:25

those are what’s connected to the the earthquakes that people linked to fracking and not only that but the

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wastewater we we find is migrating into ground water and aquifers right so so we’re

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consuming a lot of water for this process and then we’re producing waste water that’s so toxic that we can’t do

27:44

anything with it and so so the water conversation you have to look at both of

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those in not just the water consumption but what kind of water is coming out of it also

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maybe an example of how it was

28:17

interesting like kind of when I was partly growing up in Kingdom the way

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that I was taught about our relationship to our land was very specific in that my

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you know my uncle’s made a point of telling me when we were travel through the territories you know they he they would say these

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are most camacho down territories don’t forget that and these are the stories that link you to the very beginning of

28:44

time so that was my understanding of these places that we were traveling through and it really wasn’t until I

28:51

went to university that I realized that our actual legal position with the

28:58

Canadian state was that we were actually allocated these very tiny reserves so in

29:05

king whom we live on like a three square mile reserve and that’s our largest reserve and so I couldn’t I had such a

29:15

hard time you know coming to terms with these very different perceptions of our

29:22

place in the land and I what I did was that I chose to believe what had been

29:28

handed down to me which was our traditional understanding of our relationship to the land and so one of the things that I did in 1998 was to

29:36

create a giant pictograph at the mouth of the river where our villages and it’s

29:43

like a hundred and twenty foot cliff and I painted a 38 foot high by 28 foot high

29:49

a 20 20 8 foot wide image of our origin story on that cliff and that was because

29:56

I wanted to acknowledge in a visual way

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our understanding of our place in the land and and recognize that because what was happening was that the industries

30:07

and the government were refusing to recognize that we had rights and so they

30:13

were coming in and logging out the land they were you know like the issues with

30:18

the fish farms these these things were all in development at that time and and

30:24

so I thought that as an artist that was what I could do to kind of affirm our

30:30

our not only our jurisdiction over those territories but also that we

30:36

you know that we were present in those territories because in many ways we were

30:42

in a way almost legally erased so and

30:47

then it’s been an ongoing kind of you know I guess negotiation from there to

30:53

ensure that our ways of understanding our relationship to land is manifest and

31:01

in a in a public way so that there is an alternative to kind of a Western

31:09

capitalist extractivist relationship to

31:14

the land and so like I try and share that in my art practice I was just

31:21

thinking about this idea in the research that tariqa does and the knowledge that

31:27

Sarah and Marianne have of the history and the culture of their communities

31:33

that knowledge is power and so in all of the work that you all three of you do to

31:40

research whether it’s research or art projects or community projects you’re coming up with with solutions or

31:46

alternatives so tarik is finding a way to present this information to highlight how damaging it can be

31:53

you know addressing and asserting her community’s place on that land and Sarah

32:00

is finding a way back to a tradition to a practice that was lost right so this

32:07

is the thing I think that is so you know that’s why I want to kind of that

32:13

category of art I want to kind of blur that because I think it’s it’s about

32:18

solutions and alternatives because a lot of the time I can talk about the problems we know what they are we can sit here and go this is the problem and

32:24

it looks like this and this and this but what I’m hoping we can do this project is also kind of come up with some

32:29

solutions and within the realm of art we can imagine things that are way crazy

32:35

like could this even happen but by imagining that maybe it does like maybe that does actually happen and how

32:40

amazing would that be if it could so and I think in the research that you do to then gets it’s like how far can we go

32:47

with this how big could it be so I don’t know if anyone who wants to share kind of any of the work or experiences they

32:54

have where they’ve been able to imagine something or come up with a solution or an alternative that kind of moves that

33:00

thing forward or proposes a different way of doing

33:11

providing high quality

33:17

spots up to the watersheds that we’re in and some ideas for how to do that but

33:23

I’m interested in hearing about what y’all think about how we do that is

33:30

this back and frankly we’re not preserving access because not everyone

33:37

has access

33:46

I’ve talked to less I’m just looking that way to try this chance to try a

33:51

talk first all right good talk

34:00

expanding and preserving access you know when it comes to fossil fuels the problem is that local communities have a

34:09

limited set of tools there are so many things that are you know obviously in in

34:16

the way that our system works you have the federal government state government in local government and each level of

34:21

government has control of our certain amount of things federal law preempts

34:28

local law and state law so for example if federal law says that companies can

34:34

do a certain thing but people importantly don’t want those companies to do that well federal law preempts

34:40

that you can’t make pass a law that goes against what the federal law is so when

34:45

it comes to a number of things related to fossil fuels there’s a limited amount of control that we have so for example

34:52

oil trains and coal trains those are under those fall under federal law so even though we don’t want oil trains

34:59

coming through our communities we can’t stop oil trains from coming through our communities you also have certain

35:06

restrictions in that way in terms of terminals being sited well one power

35:12

that that local communities do have in one way that at sightline we’ve been

35:17

trying to shift that conversation is the local land use power local communities

35:23

local government can decide zoning laws what type of industries or construction

35:32

can go in certain areas and what type cannot they can play size restrictions

35:38

so through that zoning power one thing that they could do is limit fossil fuel infrastructure in

35:43

Portland just passed on some really groundbreaking limits last December

35:50

which I think would be upheld on appeal but but that’s one of the ways that

35:55

we’ve been trying to think about it differently in instead of going from like I said we’ve seen a tremendous

36:01

amount of proposals in the last ten years and we’ve been going from proposal to proposal to proposal trying to stop

36:07

it and we have been very successful but that can be very exhausting as well so if you where to for example use the

36:14

local zoning power to prohibit the terminals from being proposed there in the first place then you don’t have five

36:19

different facilities that you’re trying to fight in Portland five different facilities that you’re trying to fight in Victoria and and that those local

36:28

just finding those local ways in which the community does have power could be

36:33

one of the ways to change what you were talking about about access and expanding access but that’s the only thought I

36:40

have on it right now what connects to

36:51

that and is that you know when we talk

36:56

about a digital and rights and particularly particularly in Canada in DC and I am interested to know how

37:03

how different it is kind of down down in the States and in these territories but

37:09

within BC and certainly within my own territory there were no proper

37:17

procedures that the provincial and federal governments enacted in order to

37:22

legally acquire the rights to the lab too much of the land of British Columbia

37:27

so one of the major issues stumbling blocks for industry has been the

37:33

existent or the lack of extinguishment of Aboriginal title in BC so that’s why

37:39

they’ve been pushing and pushing and pushing to try and figure out how do we gain gain this access because right now

37:48

a roadblock to much of this particularly say a lot of the pipelines coming through is that there is this there is a

37:55

recognition that Aboriginal title BC still exists and for the nations that

38:02

don’t want these pipelines coming through and the ones who want to protect

38:07

the river systems and the ocean that that becomes a that has become a huge

38:12

stumbling block for the industries and I guess for us we’ve been trying to assert

38:22

kind of a the consideration of indigenous law and how does that

38:30

how does that affect Canadian law and

38:36

we’ve been looking to assert our land

38:41

jurisdiction so when I was talking about the artwork that I did it was to assert our position that we have legal rights

38:50

under our own laws to these lands and the decisions that are being made in

38:55

these lands but that we also have not had those rights extinguished through

39:01

Canadian law and and that is a huge stumbling block and it’s interesting because technically or strategically the

39:10

assertion of those rights can protect water systems to some extent the

39:17

industries which will attempt to get around these things but it certainly exists as a stumbling block for them

39:23

they seem to just ignore this kind of like corporations simply ignore the

39:31

whole thing with Standing Rock what was that about I mean the tribes have the treaties they have the supposedly go

39:37

right which was completely ignored I mean you can’t talk about these issues without talking about the politics and

39:44

and and you can’t talk about the politics without talking about the driving force piece our capitalist

39:49

system and and how well the First

39:54

Nations they used a different economic system and it was much more effective as much more sustainable we don’t have a sustainable economic system and so as we

40:03

try to perpetuate growth that is

40:08

unsustainable we’re destroying our environment at our ecology the process

40:14

and we have all these little little lip sound bites of natural gas I mean like

40:20

to me would be effective messaging against us finding ways of getting it into our

40:26

media and I would say just following up on what Maryann said is that one of the

40:33

problems is that when tribes or First Nations do assert their rights in a legal challenge it can be very tricky

40:42

because if they lose the legal challenge that can actually narrow that rights and narrow their access as has been

40:48

historically understood the court might find that they can no longer do things that they have been traditionally doing

40:53

and you know the very the very like specter of all these projects being

40:59

approved in and of itself narrows all of our access because if you have these export terminals and you have 30 of them

41:06

suddenly all along the coast with you know several tankers per day numerous tankers per month then that’s

41:12

interfering with tribal fishing that’s interfering with sports fishing that’s

41:17

interfering with our our ability to go out and and enjoy coastal activities on

41:23

the water and so even though you know the proposal is not the proposal is saying it’s not really necessarily going

41:28

to interfere with those activities when you look at the you have to look at the cumulative effect if you know multiple

41:36

proposals are to go through in a region of course that’s going to interfere with the activities that are already going on

41:42

so so definitely access is already a conversation that’s built in to you know fighting back these proposals themselves

41:49

because the permitting agencies don’t look at accumulatively they don’t say well there’s already this much traffic

41:54

in the water if we add this project then that’s going to restrict people’s access this this much more it looks at it just

42:01

solely this project as if only these three to four tankers are going to be on the water per week and there’s nothing

42:06

else going on and so so one of the things that you know I would like to see

42:13

more people bringing into the conversation is that you know like for example when people talk to their local government we need to be looking at the

42:19

cumulative cumulative impacts factor let’s not look at this project as if it’s the only thing that’s going to

42:25

exist out on the water often those are just a

42:35

foregone conclusion that art accounted for even when we

42:42

yeah well it’s not one of those of the possible attack of industries basic

42:47

tactics is avoiding any discussion of cumulative effects yeah I mean that’s that is the overarching strategy and

42:54

it’s very very effective just keep it local and you ignore the the bigger picture the problem we have

43:00

is seeing the big picture in the context of each situation yeah so as it was

43:09

mentioned earlier I’m a Honda’s case tribal member and he brought up Jordan Cove is in Coos Bay I’m also a fourth

43:16

generation descendant of the Jordan family so that areas where the number of

43:22

Hannes juice villages have been for thousands of years we think to the beginning of human existence in this

43:28

region so that means that all of our grandmother’s are buried there all the way back because I’m not an elder for my

43:36

tribe and our government is heavily involved in this I’m also not at liberty to speak about it publicly so that’s an

43:43

interesting moment in my career as an artist but I’m really really excited about your question about creative

43:51

solutions and the conversation that we’re having here and this knowledge holder sitting here to my left I had the

43:58

best dinner I’ve had in a decade last night because of the things the jewels dropping out of her mouth and what I

44:05

think the underlying answer for anything on this landmass is his money if you

44:13

want to save a tree why don’t you buy it that’s the way you’ll save it and she

44:19

brought up some really exciting things about Jordan cook that I hadn’t heard that I really hope that she’ll talk about now

44:29

here we go well I don’t know if everybody here knows what that project

44:34

is so Jordan Cove is a it’s a liquefied natural gas proposal

44:40

in a earthquake liquefaction zone in the

44:46

right-of-way of a airport all sorts of

44:51

things about this project that could be catastrophic later on but basically liquefied natural gas is natural what I

45:00

won’t say natural because like I said most of it is practing it’s practice put in liquid form so basically it’s the

45:08

exact same thing but to make it liquid you pull it to negative 260 degrees and

45:14

it becomes a liquid and so it also shrinks in volume so if I’m trying to export gas to Japan or China I can

45:24

export much more at a time if I make it liquid then you know if I’m trying to transport a gas so so it sounds fancy

45:32

but it’s just a basically a refinery for fracked gas that makes it liquid and

45:37

then loads it onto super large tankers and exports it overseas so the one of

45:44

the ones that has been proposed in this region is the Jordan cove LNG terminal at Goose Bay and

45:54

you know one of the things I’ve been trying to educate people about about this project is that it actually would

46:03

be bigger than any liquefied natural gas terminal that currently exists in the US

46:09

and in the world about 30% bigger so so

46:14

when a company comes and talks about well oh this is much cleaner because it’s natural gas instead of coal well it

46:21

but it’s a but it’s a terminal that’s bigger than any terminal in the world so we actually haven’t seen what the

46:27

impacts of that would look like you know they’re one of the things that the

46:32

fossil fuel companies rely on is knowing more about the issue than you do and so

46:39

that’s one of the things that we try to correct through the work that we do at site line is to take all this really complex information and put it kind of

46:46

in in bite-size form where people can understand and to see what the issue really is the issue the question is not

46:51

whether you know fracked gas producers less carbon than coal when you burn it

46:57

it does the question is what is what how much pollution is this terminal going to

47:03

produce in this region you know I’m not comparing this terminal to a super large

47:08

coal terminal in Coos Bay because there’s no super large coal terminal in qu space not replacing anything where it

47:14

would be cleaner it’s it’s introducing a new pollutant in into that region and

47:20

again in on a site that is very ill-advised and and so one of when you

47:31

have a situation like Jordan Cove what you’re going up against is again Methodist messaging of P basically

47:38

telling you to look at an issue that’s not really the issue you should be looking at you should be looking at

47:43

whether this is cleaner than coal because again it’s not replacing anything should be looking at what is it going to be adding so that even though

47:50

it does burn cleaner than coal your a tremendous amount of collusion for the

47:57

region just by building this massive insanely large terminal so so there’s a

48:06

lot of sort of like tricky language and and truthiness that I find myself fighting against where I have to tell

48:12

people well okay well that is somewhere in the neighborhood of the truth but

48:17

it’s actually not true and and so actually that winds up taking

48:23

so many more words than the words that they use I mean it’s almost like they can just show up and make some claim and

48:29

people know that sounds really good and then I have to say yes but but but that

48:35

that’s completely beside the point and then explain what the actual point is

48:41

and hope they’re still with me once I get to the end of explaining the thing but yes the jointing Cove project is one

48:47

that people in that in that area have been fighting against for ten years and they finally were successful when the

48:54

federal government rejected the project because basically the impact that it

49:00

would have to the community were not outweighed by the benefits because they they didn’t have any buyers for this gas

49:06

and so the we thought the project was

49:11

dead but then the election happened and the current administration has decided

49:18

that they’re going to get a liquefied natural gas terminal permitted in this region if it kills them and specifically

49:26

they said they’re going to make sure Jordan Cove goes through no clue why

49:33

they have decided you know just pick this one terminal out of all the

49:39

proposals that have you know tried and failed I’m not sure why exactly they

49:44

picked Jordan Cove but they have picked joining Cove so so it’s alive again and it’s after ten years of this victory

49:51

that we had after ten years we have to look at it again and and try to fight off the terminal again the good news is

49:59

well the bad news is that it is back the News is that the the the market for gas

50:08

is very depressed right now the prices are very low so what that means is that

50:17

usually when you when you’re building a big infrastructure project that cost millions or billions of dollars you try

50:22

to you try to get buyers that are going to commit to a long-term commitment so saying I’m gonna buy like half of

50:28

your product for ten years well then I know I’m gonna get my investment back but when the prices are really low get

50:34

people who buy gas can buy it on what we call the spot market they don’t have to tie themselves into a long-term contract

50:40

with you they can get someone to underbid you and and buy it on the spot market and so the problem right now for

50:46

a good problem for Jordan Cove is that the the same reason I was rejected in

50:52

the first place is that it’s probably not going to get any best any investors in the current market and so it really

50:57

comes out being the same conversation that’s really similar to what that

51:03

administration I find it hard to name them to say these names the current

51:10

presidential administration you know their promise is around cold that we’re gonna bring coal back and we’re gonna

51:15

get these jobs going again well no you’re not I mean it’s it’s dead and

51:21

people people are moving away from the coal people don’t want to use coal and actually what the main reason that coal

51:26

is dead is because natural gas is currently cheaper and so you can’t bring it all back without getting everybody to

51:33

stop using natural gas but you’re not going to do so so part of my question is

51:39

I’m not sure if the terminal is what we call when we typically call a zombie

51:45

project like it’s just moving forward kind of shambling with no actual you know it’s dead but it’s still shambling

51:51

around it’s what I think is going on with this project and but the thing that

51:57

you have to watch for is the market is not always your friend you know market

52:02

conditions can change that the unrest somewhere that tightens up gas supplies and then prices go up again

52:08

and then we have to be concerned but it is helpful to know the to know what’s

52:14

going on in the market because when you’re going when you’re local citizens going up against a big project the

52:20

you’re looking at companies like shell you’re looking at projects companies

52:27

that have a lot more money and resource a thing you do so it feels like a real it really feels like a David and Goliath

52:32

situation but it’s so it’s helpful to know what the market dynamics are so you can actually know you know how desperate

52:38

they are and how desperately they need to get this project through because they will try to look very very confident and

52:43

you know there’s nothing these little activists can do to stop what we’re doing so it’s helpful to know actually

52:50

what’s going on behind the scenes in terms of the market sometimes I find it can give me a little bit of confidence

52:57

but it’s important to not get overly confident because things can’t change

53:02

because of yes and that’s the downside

53:09

yes the opposite our greatest ally right now it’s China because they’re putting up for every solar panel they put up

53:15

that’s that’s that much less natural liquid natural gas and coal that they want over there they set up a grid over

53:21

there in Southeast Asia they will they will be a energy exporter to the rest of

53:26

Southeast Asia and that could end that fossil fuel I mean that’s my dream but I

53:34

mean you’re right its market forces again I go back to capitalism and then you can’t have this

53:39

conversation without without looking at a basically an economic system that is collapsing under its own weight

53:51

certain conditions there is tougher wood

54:02

I don’t know they’re inside yes they are

54:10

alright thoughts on capitalism Marianne

Marianne Williamson

54:30

you were talking a couple of days ago

54:35

basically indigenous worldviews and economic structures and I think I made

54:42

some Pollyanna like comment about well maybe

54:49

the silver lining of the administration of the president who will not be named is that we’re all starting to see the

Pollyanna

54:56

holes in capitalism and looking for some different structure so I wonder if you could talk about about

55:06

what what capitalism

55:12

what yeah well well when the things that I was in intrigued and tricked by was

55:20

this older these older perspectives and and you know like it was interesting to

55:29

me when I was learning our language and one of the things that I had trouble

55:34

understanding was that there was this mapping that happens in Platte Walla and

55:39

the old people in the language would talk about the coast as upriver and

55:45

downriver and I couldn’t understand that because we live we live on a river system yes and we speak of up rivers now

55:53

know and down rivers Wow like that’s a stem form for those meanings but when

56:00

the when they would talk about up the coast and down the coast they would use the same terminology throughout the

56:07

coast and down the coast and it took me a long time I really questioned it because it couldn’t wrap my mind around

56:12

it and and then it finally came to me that our conceptualization and the

56:20

transfer of our relationships as based

56:25

on a river system was being translated to the coast and so in our when you

56:31

think about the river systems when you live by a river system when when the fish go up the river the the people who

56:39

live near the mouth of the river have a responsibility to allow enough

56:45

of the run to go upriver and different people’s communities live up the river

56:50

so there’s a negotiation that takes place an agreement that takes place in

56:56

regards to communal property and I’d

57:02

actually don’t even like using that word but stewardship rights so and this was

57:08

very different from kind of I was thinking like about about capitalism because if you were a capitalist or in a

57:15

capitalist framework you would vie to be the first person at the mouth of the river so that you could basically garner

57:22

as much of that fish run as you possibly could and then basically like sell it

57:28

off to become extraordinarily wealthy at the expense of the people who live further up the river but what was

57:34

remarkable to me was that though the in qua quality and it was interesting because they compared this with another

57:40

language new hulk which are a different nation living further up the coast from us and they have the same concept within

57:47

their language which is to say they conceive of the coast as a river system and there’s upriver and downriver and

57:54

therefore we must navigate our relationships with one another in the idea that there is a communal approach

58:02

to our relationship to that which sustains us which in english and under

58:10

capitalism is referred to as resources so this whole thing around individual

58:18

property rights is extraordinarily problematic under an indigenous

58:23

framework because the whole idea

58:30

being able to own as much as possible goes against the idea that we have a

58:37

responsibility to each other to have a

58:42

community sense of well-being you know and also even the idea that we don’t own

58:52

these things that we actually engage with them in a reciprocal relationship

58:59

and that we respect what is being given to us and we ensure that we give something back and and so these well

59:07

that’s when I was like kind of trying to sort through what I was learning in university and what I was seeing out in

59:13

the general society and what was being taught through the language and through

59:18

our cultural forms at home and Kingdom the the idea of community responsibility

59:27

and reciprocity was was not what I was seeing reflected in head of a modern

59:33

capitalist condition and so really what we were what we’ve been trying to fight

59:39

for all these years is not just the recognition of our of our jurisdiction over our territories but to maintain

59:48

also our way of being within those territories so we don’t see ourselves as

59:54

owning those territories so much is that we have a sustained relationship and and

59:59

that it’s deeply embedded not just within our relationship to one another but it’s also deeply embedded within our

1:00:07

relationship to our ancestors and to our descendants and I don’t see this

1:00:12

reflected the mainstream capitalist society I mean

1:00:18

the game that explains to all those monopolies that’s what it’s about it’s about separation

1:00:23

it’s about separating a very few of halves from all the others who don’t have and by exploiting all those that

1:00:30

don’t have those people at the top make you know become more more powerful that’s capitalism that’s communism they

1:00:36

are inseparable

1:00:54

[Music]

1:01:19

are there already

1:01:37

gender identity sure uh well can we get there in a minute there were some other things I wanted to do there before

1:01:45

property is theft it’s a pun you guys

1:01:50

and kind of jumping off of what she’s talking about in responding to the

1:01:57

capitalist colonial conversation and almost ignoring it for a minute to talk

1:02:04

about our worldview it seems very similar to yours and I’ve noticed that

1:02:12

in business groups around the world generally have kind of similar approach to land management or relationship and

1:02:24

it’s about reciprocal and respect kind

1:02:30

of conversation of equality as opposed to dominance and so what I was taught I

1:02:37

study with Greg Archuleta of the Grande Ronde and Greg Robinson of signification

1:02:44

and they’ve enforced what I was taught growing up in my family and so I think

1:02:51

that you know Courte and those are coos ideas and so what I’m gathering is that the idea when you’re gathering or when

1:02:59

you’re in nature or when you’re interacting with an animal or other people that there’s a that you’re equals

1:03:07

so this plant that I’m going to gather is a living thing and it’s my equal and I’m not there to

1:03:15

harvest it I’m there to gather and before I can do that I have to ask for

1:03:21

permission and I have to wait for an answer and if I the answer I get is no

1:03:27

then I have to consent is everything I have to listen to the know and I have to go on even though I’m like really

1:03:34

excited to have found the thing I’m looking for I know means no forever I

1:03:39

guess then we’re getting into gender identity aren’t we so that’s the first step is asking for

1:03:46

consent the next step is and part of asking for consent is intention what do

1:03:53

you plan to do with this thing is it because you’re greedy for it you’re gonna get a bunch of money for it or is

1:03:58

it because you have a wholesome intention and that’s based in love and respect for you know that and so as far

1:04:06

as weaving goes you know I’m going to make something beautiful with it that I

1:04:11

can use as a tool to teach people things it’s a political tool it’s an

1:04:18

educational tool it’s got all of these other kinds of things and so if the plant wants to be part of that then then

1:04:23

it agrees and then I also after that

1:04:29

then I have to pay for it I can’t nobody likes to get ripped off right so then

1:04:34

I’m going to repay this plant in a number of ways through prayer and song

1:04:41

and actual physical exchange and I’m going to leave something there which is

1:04:47

also a marker so when I come back next year I’m like oh yeah I already gathered here we will leave alone when the

1:04:54

neighbor from down the road comes through they’re like Oh smooths already gathered here so we leave it alone you know it’s a system and honor system that

1:05:01

everybody agrees on and is operating under the same same relationship you

1:05:07

don’t wipe it out you take when you turn away and walk away and look at back at where you’ve been it should be invisible

1:05:14

that you were there it’s like what you’re talking about with the fish so if you are oh and then you have to follow

1:05:22

through this is something that our administration might consider so on a

1:05:28

promise that you said you’re going to do the thing then you have to do it you can’t just be like yeah I got my stuff now I’m gonna go watch some football or

1:05:35

something then you have to do the things you said you’re going to do with it you have to you know

1:05:40

fulfill your promise so it’s route it’s in it’s just kind of basic manners –

1:05:45

it’s not like we have some like some

1:05:51

system that is alien to Western society

1:05:56

it’s just not really good for greed-based it’s it’s you if you have

1:06:03

what you need then it doesn’t you know anyway I heard you’re right so you get

1:06:08

right so so those kinds of approaches I

1:06:13

think are or I hear from indigenous

1:06:19

groups around the world at that sort of an approach starting with equality between the different you know rocks

1:06:27

water plants animals humans as opposed to hierarchy where humans get to be at the top and ego based system it seems

1:06:35

like capitalism well racism is the long arm of the class

1:06:41

system the class systems intended to keep the money distributed in a certain

1:06:47

way and all these things kind of work together and I think that colonialism is sort of a science you know science

1:06:54

experiment based on those ideas and so I

1:07:00

think that the your question about chickens kind of chicken or an egg they’re all real involved with each other arms of each other and and they

1:07:09

come after indigenous knowledge they’re just a new invention of humans and it’s

1:07:14

you know they’re greed based and their laziness base right so it’s a way to Matt get more for your input you know

1:07:23

where as a sustainable system has to do with this give and take and cool all

1:07:33

right so you wanted to talk about feminism and Standing Rock

1:07:39

okay can I just interject that a lot of the outcomes that come from the issues

1:07:47

that were talking about you know access to clean water or pollution that comes

1:07:52

from you know fossil fuels the people that are most susceptible to those harms

1:07:59

are children and the elderly and in

1:08:05

terms of getting health impacts or neurological defects and and those

1:08:10

burdens disproportionately fall on women in terms of the people who will have to

1:08:16

take care of the people who are dealing with those impacts and so that’s something that that’s always sort of in

1:08:21

the back of my mind when I’m looking at these issues and looking at like health impacts to the community I know that

1:08:27

those burdens are going to disproportionately fall on women and the

1:08:35

second question was daffle why do was it that why why do you think that dapple

1:08:40

became such a such a large issue nationally and internationally

1:09:05

we already have one it’s that trans mountain pipeline MBC it would it would

1:09:14

be a trans boundary issue because the pipeline is coming down into shared waters between Washington and BC but you

1:09:20

already have First Nations in BC who are setting up encampments in opposition to

1:09:25

the trans mountain pipeline and I don’t know Miriam or someone else was in BC we

1:09:32

want to talk a little bit more about that but it’s already being called the Standing Rock of the north or the

1:09:39

Northwest it’s just that right now we’re still in the permitting process of the pipeline so we haven’t gotten to that

1:09:45

point where we were with Standing Rock where they were directly you know

1:09:51

standing in opposition to the people who were there with the bulldozers and trying to build the pipelines but it’s

1:09:57

already building in terms of the encampments already being there and people being dedicated to having their

1:10:04

encampment in the path of that pipeline and absolutely refusing to move so

1:10:21

and the drives have been very what they

1:10:27

say has the poetry that the science

1:10:33

and they people are bringing the code to reward and their hearts and their families

1:10:40

to sleep but there’s the last hearing is on Tuesday 22nd in Vancouver to try to

1:10:48

do the stormwater permit he goes who these hearings that take 810 hours they

1:10:53

give each person two minutes the oil company brings all these experts who are very

1:10:59

well spoken in all the people who want their jollies in construction and then

1:11:04

there’s a bunch of little regular people and a lot of them are people like

1:11:12

but it would be great to see more artists so great to see more young people the last Tuesday

1:11:20

everybody I think artists have not been represented

1:11:26

the

1:11:54

it’s really it’s really tricky you know like the difficulty like when you were

1:12:02

talking earlier about jurisdictions and this is some of the difficulty that we have as indigenous peoples is because

1:12:07

the federal and the provincial governments have separated jurisdictions

1:12:13

to a certain extent so it’s really complicated under their systems to

1:12:19

address issues and so there’s these complicated process where the federal

1:12:25

government has jurisdiction and such in certain permitting area areas and then and then the provincial does and what’s

1:12:32

difficult for us is when they separate things like that for us say waters and

1:12:39

lands are not separated and and and we certainly have such a different

1:12:44

perception of even the boundaries of our jurisdictions as nations and how do we

1:12:51

negotiate that that what’s what’s been difficult is that the Canadian

1:12:57

government in both federal position and and provincial wants us to map to their

1:13:04

understanding of these forms so it’s basically it’s a similar term it asks us to agree to the conditions as they said

1:13:13

set them out and I think you know part of the

1:13:18

problems that we’re facing provincially I guess is that the relationship the

1:13:25

coalition between the NDP and the Green Party is so tenuous at this point in

1:13:32

time so so you have these different bodies of authority kind of vying for

1:13:40

their agenda to be pushed forward and currently the federal agenda is that

1:13:46

these these that this pipeline go through but they agenda of many of the

1:13:53

indigenous nations is to push back against that and to and to say no that

1:13:59

being said there’s all kinds of things in the background going on where industry and particularly the provincial

1:14:05

government attempt to in I would say well I can’t say this current government

1:14:11

but basically the pillars with the prior Liberal government was that there was a

1:14:16

extensive effort on on their parts to basically infiltrate First Nations

1:14:24

administrations to gain help them gain the approvals that that they need so

1:14:31

that’s created at times divisions between amongst nations over what their positions were going to be and it’s a

1:14:37

difficult tenuous place for many indigenous nations because so many first

1:14:42

nations are impoverished so it’s like it’s a similar situation when and government and industry is stepping

1:14:49

in whether that provincial or federal and saying you know you’re going to get jobs out of this you’re gonna have a better life because of this and yet it

1:14:57

goes against the principles and worldview but you know there’s there’s

1:15:05

so much I guess

1:15:11

underlying issues in that regard but it does seem to me and this is one of the really positive things that I think has

1:15:18

come out of things like the Dakota access pipeline protests is that when

1:15:27

the in when indigenous peoples actually you know get together and talk about

1:15:33

these things there is a mutual fundamental position that exists amongst

1:15:40

us like it’s remarkable to to have a conversation with Sarah and basically the same teachings that have been passed

1:15:47

down to her are this very very similar teachings that were passed down to me and I think that comes from living very

1:15:53

closely with the land in a very sustainable way so there is a human way of being with the land that indigenous

1:16:00

people carry and if we can somehow like

1:16:05

by working together with other nations but if we could even help spread that

1:16:10

position that way of understanding relationships you know with that with the broader society then I think there’s

1:16:18

there’s a chance there for us to push back against what’s been happening because I know for myself coming from a

1:16:24

small community that we do not have the capacity to fight the fish farms

1:16:32

we have to form allied relationships with other nations who will support us

1:16:37

and even with non indigenous peoples who can come and support us so so that’s

1:16:44

part of the relationship building that we’re trying to do here today even again

1:16:50

I would duck tail on that a minute to and to get into something exciting too you know we’re talking about such hard

1:16:56

things and it comes out of Umatilla Labradors people so you know when

1:17:04

indigenous people are given back control land management you know all that stuff

1:17:11

they generally have really incredible results you Metellus have been able to

1:17:16

bring back a number of salmon species that had been all but extinct

1:17:22

you know it’s a great example everybody if you want to feel good go research that that’s gonna help you feel better

1:17:28

all the way and you know so it’s I think this group is all in cahoots on these

1:17:34

ideas that there’s something deeply wrong there are some ideas from

1:17:40

indigenous cultures that look good and we have examples in the state you know a

1:17:48

really incredible successes so you know I think it I think it’s in the room what

1:17:54

we need but the the disconnect between

1:18:00

the First Nations view the world and capitalism is really simple it’s the you

1:18:07

view the world as they’re connected to it it’s part of you you are a part of our ism capitalist who

1:18:14

could see nothing but our artifact to use all it I think the only thing is connected to it’s a number on a line

1:18:21

that says profit that’s the battle but I

1:18:43

think Sarah the work that you do when you talk about being out in the bush and being on the river like I think so much

1:18:52

of what we’ve a lot a lot of us have lost is a relationship to our resources

1:18:57

to the things that give us life right yeah so that relationship to water and

1:19:02

living on the water and and being part of those systems and understanding the in a very physical way

1:19:09

so can could you maybe speak a bit to the process of what you do in your work yeah I think so I hope so I’ll try

1:19:17

[Music] so for us because the continuum of

1:19:23

knowledge was interrupted dramatically in the 1850s then that knowledge began

1:19:30

to hibernate in our passing it down person to person and but knowledge is

1:19:39

cashed out in three places that I know of in the baskets so I go to find it in

1:19:46

the museum’s and I mean my actual my actual ancestral knowledge it’s in my

1:19:55

DNA so if I can wake it up in there and that’s science and it’s in the plants

1:20:02

where we got it in the first place so and I think this is an indigenous thing like all of the technologies and science

1:20:09

and spirituality all of the different parts of our life ways we gain through observation

1:20:15

in nature and paying attention to it and listening to it and picking up what it’s

1:20:23

slaying down right so if that’s your starting place then that’s still there

1:20:28

in the ferocious beautiful thing that nature is and still contains against you

1:20:35

know humanity’s ugliness and attempts to kill it so in my practice I’ve been going to

1:20:43

those resources and trying to awaken

1:20:49

that within myself and then my neighbors the tribes all around me help me by

1:20:57

sharing with me how they do those things so I’m trying to find a middle ground under it and we really look to each

1:21:05

other for that that kind of exchange

1:21:12

which isn’t about money you know it isn’t about a financial for us anyway in

1:21:18

our area it’s it’s not money based it’s relationship based so rich in culture

1:21:26

rich in relationships you have plenty to eat you have what you those things are what our wealth is based on and so it’s

1:21:37

kind of a everybody’s putting in on it am I getting it what you’re talking

1:21:43

about or asking you to talk about it’s great okay one of the things I wanted to

1:21:48

get at to when we’re talking about success against these forces of evil

1:21:54

there are some groups in Alaska who succeeded against some of these

1:22:01

ecological disasters and their advice to me is vigilance like the neverending

1:22:10

vigilance and that you are to wrap everything in gossamer layers of

1:22:16

protection and like thinking of the zombie forces of evil they’re never

1:22:22

really going to go away so you also have to be somewhat in the same mind for and so you know and work with whatever

1:22:29

your particular powers are you know thinking of your own privileges and the own thing the things where you have

1:22:35

contact and you have like a way to push if you’ve got money that’s awesome but if you don’t what are the things you do

1:22:41

and so one of those gossamer layers that I can pull a string towards is getting

1:22:48

into stuff you were talking about so one of those little lines of planned protection that’s in there is that if

1:22:56

one of these entities is going to destroy an area that you have that an

1:23:04

indigenous group has a cultural or spiritual history of use for they have

1:23:11

to provide you with a similar situation somewhere else or they have to move the

1:23:18

thing now you can’t move an ancient garden that’s been cultivated for thousands of years it just won’t work

1:23:24

you also can’t regrow it somewhere else you don’t have the time and it doesn’t exist somewhere else so one of the

1:23:31

things that I can do is I can go to a site and if I can see that there’s 45 plants that are growing that are used

1:23:38

for medicine and weaving and food that to me indicates that this is a space

1:23:44

that we have we’ve been doing this forever I come and do it a couple times I teach

1:23:50

some students to do some things there and it’s alive again right so that’s a that’s a precedence that we can use –

1:23:59

it’s a gossamer layer it’s just it’s just one you know and everybody is sitting in the room you have cell phones

1:24:06

you have which you know you can write stuff there’s all all of these entities

1:24:11

that are trying to do these things they have to go through a process the beautiful thing about our system is that

1:24:17

it’s a game and if you can figure out what you want in the game then you can try to work against it right so it’s you

1:24:26

know setting up a system in your life of like on Tuesdays I write a letter to a

1:24:31

senator or whatever it is that you’ve set up is you approach you know in in inventory your

1:24:38

privileges and where you have access and figuring out how to push on that piece

1:24:46

well and I was really appreciating what Sarah was saying about successes like I think you know part of our resilience

1:24:54

and working through all of this and I think we can really look to indigenous

1:25:01

communities for that model is just that amazing resilience to rise above the

1:25:09

things that can just I mean they’re exhausting and so I think part of what

1:25:14

we need to do in this work is is really focus on our successes give the energy

1:25:20

to our successes and not to the things you know don’t give airtime to the things that are dragging it down you

1:25:28

know so I don’t know maybe for some final final words if any of the

1:25:33

panelists or any of the audience members want to maybe go through a few successes out there to like end this on a high you

1:25:39

know

1:26:17

and there’s

1:26:57

I wonder about that

1:27:05

[Music]

1:27:18

well that’s what I gets me up in the morning you pull 70 hours a week out of

1:27:23

my life every time and yeah I mean that’s where it’s all out for me so you guys already heard all night steps yeah

1:27:31

I think even that’s what we’re trying to do here like rather than just put up a single exhibition dealing with that

1:27:38

issue it has a temporal frame around it and then it comes down you know we’ve

1:27:44

been working on this for a number of years now and much of it it’s being dialogue and now we’re expanding our

1:27:51

dialogue and and so you know we’re looking at kind of you know

1:27:56

rehabilitating and on a number of levels and trying to think of things on a

1:28:01

number of levels and I I do think you know in at the end of the day I’m always

1:28:07

hopeful I know kind of it’s funny because the

1:28:12

older I get the more aware I am the bad situation that we’re in but I’m still extraordinarily hopeful and I think you

1:28:21

know that talking is very important and communicating with people it’s very important and I use the artwork as a

1:28:27

platform and it’s been really valuable for me to hear to sit and hear what is

1:28:34

being said and shared because it helps me to kind of continue to move forward

1:28:40

and know that you know we’re not we’re not alone and what we’re trying to do right I think my thoughts on the

1:28:48

community piece of it is that I thought that sort of been in the back of my mind

1:28:56

as we’ve been talking is that historically museums and not all but

1:29:03

many their relationship with indigenous art and indigenous artists can be a very

1:29:12

negative relationship in in the in terms of the fact that a lot of the artifacts

1:29:17

and pieces that are in museums we’re not given to them by anyone they were not

1:29:23

made to be displayed in the museum they’re taken from communities and put on display and I think right now what

1:29:29

you have in these conversations around water consumption or water usage and fossil fuel impacts is indigenous

1:29:35

communities taking their art themselves of their own volition into the museum and and using these things as a way to

1:29:43

teach people and have conversations about those communities and about where art meets with resources and I think

1:29:51

that’s a very interesting thing that’s going on right now and it’s really interesting to me I guess this is the

1:29:58

field I work in that the conversations are happening around water and resources and I just think that and you know maybe

1:30:06

I hope I’m not deluding myself in thinking that that’s sort of like up ends that that narrative or that like historical

1:30:12

relationship and changes it I like that [Laughter]

1:30:23

well I just want to echo that I feel like this is one of those positive

1:30:28

success stories and I feel really grateful that you guys came and shared

1:30:34

here and I look forward to continued conversation and hearing more about the

1:30:41

programming but yeah I just want to say thank you this has been a great

1:30:57

opportunity and I feel like all these fortuitous things have fallen into place for us to come back here after visiting

1:31:03

here two years ago and reconnecting and this is really just a starting point and as I said to you know everyone that not

1:31:10

everything has to happen today that this is really just a way to start until work oh and and these things just take time

1:31:17

and I just yeah I really appreciate everyone coming out and sharing their

1:31:22

thoughts and being part of this process and we’ll be showing this in exhibition

1:31:28

research space in September and Victoria so we’re as part of this project we’ll

1:31:34

be opening the space called water water work space and so there’ll be a lot of

1:31:40

different ways for people to engage with these issues and this the documentation of this event will be shown at that in

1:31:46

that space as well so it’s a great way to connect along the coast with what we’re all thinking about overall sharing

1:31:52

across cultures across disciplines and experiences so that’s really the goal

1:31:58

it’s opening on September 16th yeah in Victoria so come on up

1:32:09

well thank you everyone and you know if anyone is too shy to speak up in front

1:32:14

of the group feel free to come up afterwards Masters done so thank you [Applause]

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