Currently, I live and work in Tkarón:to (also known as Toronto) which lies within the territory that is the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Haudenosaunee Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibwe and allied nations to peaceably share and care for the resources around the Great Lakes.
I thank the local Indigenous communities that live on, steward, and share knowledge of the land: the Rotinonshión:ni (Haudenosaunee/Iroquois); the Tsonontowane’á:ka (Seneca); the Métis; and the Anishinaabeg (Chippewa/Ojibwe).
At the core of this project is an attempt for me to think through a work that operates away from and (aspirationally) exceeding processes, structures, and forms that are embedded and enfolded in colonial ideologies.
I acknowledge that it is my responsibility as a settler artist to understand the ways in which I create art that benefits from and reifies colonial ideologies while also carefully reflecting on my relationship with Indigenous peoples, cultures, laws, and histories that are a vibrant living part of the context in which I work.
Lastly, it is important to acknowledge my ongoing process of understanding and reflection outlined above, like the work on this website itself, places ideas in relationship to each other for us to consider. While sometimes these relations may sit comfortably alongside each other, room must also be made for relations to sit in tension and/or opposition -- understanding that not all differences can be reconciled.