00:06:16.460It really does feel such an honor to get to have you back in this recurring way,
00:06:21.840to get to know you as people and your work we really feel so much love for you both
00:06:27.220social media is such a spiky many-headed thing but the one great thing it does is let us
00:06:33.980watch our beloved friends from afar so getting to see your music journeys and digital art and
00:06:41.040ritual work and increasing infiltration of gallery spaces all of that stuff is so electric and we're
00:06:47.960so excited to hear how it's been. And also, I'm just interested to hear how you're feeling about
00:06:54.140this meeting place of identities, which indigenous, urban, all the other pieces that are so unique to
00:07:03.140you, that are just labels, really, but I'm interested in how you navigate them and how
00:07:08.440you're feeling about them. And maybe that could be a starting point for an introduction, a
00:07:13.340reintroduction. What's your work like? How are you these days? Edgar, maybe we could start with
00:07:20.320you. It's so nice to have you back. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. So grateful to be here
00:07:26.360again. And yeah, wow, you I feel like that's such a deep question. I think it's it's it's a lot to
00:07:35.240think about the moment we're in. You know, it's such an intense time. And I do feel like a lot
00:07:42.000of what we've talked about in the last few years we're really seeing come to fruition whether it's
00:07:48.680the joining of a lot of people coming together casting spells connecting organizing making
00:07:55.300change happen and also the rise of the reaction to that too and how much we're seeing the fear
00:08:03.740show up in folks who don't want to see change your question of these intersecting parts of self I
00:08:09.540think I'm I do feel like I'm in a place of change and transformation I do feel like I'm still being
00:08:16.160impacted by that eclipse I shared earlier that I'm still dealing with some health issues that
00:08:22.180arose during the eclipse and I definitely feel the synchronicity of that and also the message
00:08:30.220that I've been receiving of needing to slow down and needing to care for myself and resource and
00:08:36.900ground. I'm someone who gets so excited by doing millions of things. I'm a Gemini and I do really
00:08:46.420enjoy dabbling and connecting with many different communities and people. And also I know that it's
00:08:54.160important for me to care for myself and to, you know, really think about what's important for me
00:08:59.500right now. And so I've been really just focusing on rest and focusing on, you know, resourcing and
00:09:05.620also planning and strategizing, thinking about how it is that my work as an artist, as a healer,
00:09:12.800as a psychotherapist, as an educator, as a witch, how these all are needing to show up in different
00:09:21.240ways and with different communities. And I do feel like, you know, being Indigenous, I've also
00:09:27.480really just been thinking a lot about rights and also relationships and the ways in which I'm so
00:09:34.620excited to see Indigenous folks reaffirming ancestral pacts and pacts that we've been
00:09:42.140dislocated or disconnected from and that's something that I've been really thinking about
00:09:47.180with my art practice how I can really bring to mind and to heart these relationships that are
00:09:55.280so important that we are needing to tend and care for and I also want to like bring in the dead and
00:10:03.980the ancestors and obviously nature and the living and dead beings on our planet that are also part
00:10:11.900of these relationships too and I do feel like that's a place I've been really in I just yeah
00:10:18.280I feel I've been feeling the heaviness and also feeling the lightness and wanting to bring in
00:10:22.780lightness and love into places where that are feeling really heavy but also being with that
00:10:27.920heaviness with that darkness too I feel is really important I'm interested to hear you talk more
00:10:33.320about the idea of ancestral pacts. And I'm also so moved to think about this relationship with
00:10:39.520the eclipse when you're already in a place of knowing that you need to resource, you need to
00:10:45.720be quiet, you need to be still. Yeah, I've heard from a lot of people in my life, you know, both
00:10:51.320friends of mine and also folks that I get to connect with through my practices. Just I think
00:10:55.760a lot of folks are moving through different things that have been unfolding since that eclipse. And
00:11:00.700I also should mention that on the other side I've also had really powerful magical things happen too
00:11:06.340around the eclipse as well so it's like all coming at once and I think that's also something
00:11:11.820that I'm just really sitting with is like how things can really all blossom at the same time0.94
00:11:16.340yeah that's hard for me to accept when I don't want to take the shit with the flowers but I know
00:11:22.260that's part of the deal totally Amanda would you tell us Amanda more links how are you0.82
00:11:32.120reintroduce yourself for the very first time and feel free to respond to things that Edgar said or
00:11:37.920just leave your own story pieces in hi everybody whenever I hear you folks speak I feel
00:11:46.800strong i feel brought together by horses that are greater than us there's a deep compassion and care
00:11:59.540for all of creation there's that consideration for who's hurting and there's a consideration
00:12:10.260of kind of like the seasonal shift that we're in right now of like seedlings being vulnerable at
00:12:20.520this point if you're growing seedlings inside it's this really intricate and involved process of
00:12:29.740I almost want to say playing god with creating a natural environment that's hospitable to
00:12:38.740growing something whether that's putting a heat mat underneath or stratifying seeds in a freezer
00:12:47.720to replicate the patterns of what these seeds would be doing in nature if they would fall
00:12:56.140into the ground and have been part of that ecological process and so to be that conscious
00:13:03.540of everything around you of like knowing that you need sunlight you need warmth you need cold
00:13:10.140you need the right balance of all those things and all this you know the right amount of watering
00:13:17.260I've been a person that's accidentally killed some house plants by thinking I know what it needs
00:13:23.880and there's this act of listening that happens with caretaking and tending to something where
00:13:30.880it's not so much about what you think something needs but rather the listening and giving that
00:13:39.960care and sacrificing yourself and your time to do that i kind of come in with that when i come to
00:13:46.380introducing myself it's really weird and hard because i'm like oh god i gotta think about all
00:13:53.180the words like the things I did or who I am in relationship to everything around me and I want
00:14:01.580to be in right relationship to everything around me and I guess today I come to it with that
00:14:08.720mindfulness and intentionality that I'm part of a greater whole or a symphony thinking about
00:14:16.360act of silence as musicality and you need that anticipation to know when the beat drops
00:14:26.920so to speak and silence as sound and that silence is purposeful when you're talking about belting
00:14:36.900I was like, ooh, fire, you know, tending a fire and the need for all the elements to take turns.
00:14:48.900I am so excited about my first question. I'm a little giddy about it, actually.
00:14:55.980So I'm just going to jump right in and ask it so that I don't have to wait any longer.
00:15:02.000because we think of indigeneity as you know tied to the earth and tied to the land but both of you
00:15:09.860are working in outer space amanda you in the fall did a project or worked on a project called
00:15:17.800digital constellations and edgar your art is on the moon i'm like shaking to hear about how this
00:15:29.980came about like let's start with Edgar how did your art end up on the moon and how does outer
00:15:37.360space figure out into your notion of everything and in your notion of nature yeah um thank you
00:15:45.600for that question I feel the giddiness really receiving that giddiness and yeah I'm I'm so
00:15:54.340honored to have my work up there along with so many other luminaries and you know to be a part
00:15:59.780of a larger project that's trying to really document the cultural work that we've all as
00:16:06.960humans been doing here on the planet and to have it somewhere saved on the moon for future
00:16:12.480generations. It's such an honor and it was all because of a friend of mine named Casey Kaufman
00:16:18.760who's an artist in Los Angeles. I think she was invited by someone through USC and it's interesting
00:16:26.880because USC right now is having such an intense moment in the limelight and I was invited to
00:16:34.940share some of my spells my digital spells and I selected four spells that I felt all connected to
00:16:43.520either the moon or the earth and also just like a legacy that I felt was important to share
00:16:48.640around queerness around alterity around also other visions of the world and they selected
00:16:57.920I think 134 artists that are contemporary artists to put on the moon and they put our work onto
00:17:06.160these discs that were able to engrave our art so they anyone who ends up finding it in the future
00:17:15.780will be able to see our work with a microscope and so they're hoping that whatever species or
00:17:23.020beings find this will have that technology to be able to see and along with our art there's also a
00:17:30.900copy of wikipedia that's been placed up there there's been a copy of different i think dictionaries
00:17:37.920and also encyclopedias and so there's a way that they're really trying to encapsulate human
00:17:43.760consciousness and labor and work in and cultural you know bearing productions up in the moon and
00:17:51.640I definitely feel really deeply connected to the universe and the moon and also to
00:17:58.400alien life forms and what the alien represents in our world I as you all know I love the word
00:18:03.920mutant too and I've been really thinking a lot recently about you know going back to thinking
00:18:10.440about ancestral veneration and reconnecting with different ancestral facts, I've been really
00:18:16.680connecting a lot with Takutsu Nakawe, who is a divine goddess of the Virarika, and she's also
00:18:23.660known as Great Grandmother Growth. I actually had a moment last night where I went to an event
00:18:28.880and I was watching this performance happen, and it just really all clicked to me because I've been
00:18:35.680so drawn to Takutsu Nakawe and I've been creating work with her and been really honoring her in my
00:18:43.140altar and it all clicked and it might seem funny but I just was like oh yeah that's the mutant
00:18:49.280energy I've been thinking about is this great grandmother growth that is inside all living
00:18:55.020beings and allows us to change and to transform and going along with the desire to have our
00:19:01.500words and our art and our spells reach out across time and space is this desire to
00:19:08.460have things that can transcend time but also that exist in different places and that can share
00:19:16.420something that moves beyond what can sometimes feel like the trap of living in a singular life
00:19:24.120time and knowing that we're also connected beyond these this illusion of a one life that we get
00:19:31.940sold by the western world and yeah so i think that's like where you know the question that
00:19:38.940you're asking it really makes me think about how we're all casting out energies and bringing our
00:19:45.660energy to amplify it and i think the moon is such a powerful amplifier of energy and i just feel so
00:19:52.680honored to have my work up there and to know that it's going to be found at some point by some sort
00:19:58.880of civilization or some sort of you know pirate or whoever it is that finds it I'm just so honored
00:20:07.080to know that I'm a part of this history now and I think that's something that I've also just been
00:20:12.260thinking a lot about especially as an artist who's been marginalized who's queer and who's also you
00:20:18.680know living within a system that doesn't really uplift and historicize a lot of work of queer
00:20:25.400trans folks and indigenous folks and so it does feel really great to be able to like smuggle in
00:20:31.580some information into the galleries and museums and to have some of the institutions start to
00:20:37.460understand the impact of our work and how much we have been ignored and how important it is to have
00:20:44.580our stories and our words and our visions in these spaces. Amanda, can you expand on digital
00:20:52.780constellations? I know you wrote a lot about being two-spirit and your indigeneity and that sort of
00:20:59.700identity. Can you talk about that and being on the moon with Edgar and forming a constellation
00:21:05.560of future queer indigeneity i am competing with my kitty in the corner i think it's really
00:21:15.740exciting and wonderful to learn about your project edgar the idea and prospect of the celestial space
00:21:25.120as a part of our cosmology part of our story and revitalizing it in a way and like looking at that
00:21:35.120as a medium that requires nurturing if you could just let me can you see him with my zoom call
00:21:44.460i'm so sorry one second okay it's so sweet it's so sweet it happens all the time in our coven
00:21:51.720circles there's like someone trying to tell something like really emotional and like
00:21:55.840important and intense and their animal is like now is the time i declare my affection
00:22:00.940hello hello thanks for your patience yeah no sweat where to begin with digital constellations
00:22:10.660i wanted to create a space for the youth that i have had the pleasure of working alongside the
00:22:20.880the artworks in the curation or exhibit is it's a virtual reality piece where there are models
00:22:29.260of their works and images of their material practices that include beadwork, it includes
00:22:38.840the making of basketry, their connection to plant kin that they deeply connect with or feel homesick
00:22:47.460for. And I wanted to make a sovereign space in the sky for those stories to be told. And there's
00:22:57.020An interesting juxtaposition of seeing Earth objects in a celestial context, and they start floating and dancing around the space like ancestors, like spirit beings, and interpreted in a way that asks for protection.
00:23:19.700It asks to be heard and it asks for sovereignty and it asks to be perceived through the eyes of magic in that way.
00:23:30.620It was a response to being systematically raced through many institutions or through trying to access ceremony as two-spirit individuals who want to return to our traditions, our dance, our powwows, our regalias, and our cultural roles from a time in a different context.
00:23:58.620context and the idea of cosmology having things that we believe in is a mere reflection of our
00:24:08.860ecologies so what's happening on earth is also happening in space and a lot of our star stories
00:24:19.340a lot of our ways that we understand the land around us
00:24:44.940this has been something that's been really minimized
00:24:49.340or practiced in secret. And so there's a type of intentionality I had in the creation of these
00:24:59.260spaces that look at how much we share and how much we hold internally, how much we keep for
00:25:08.600ourselves in self-preservation or to protect from extraction and exploitation. And that discernment
00:25:17.780of trying to know when it's purposeful to share and when we are not safe to do so
00:25:27.340and kind of rocking the line between those two spaces knowing that if things don't get passed
00:25:36.100down they die with us but if they do and end up in the wrong hands that also has its own
00:25:43.780ways of creating complex narrative or history and our healing process from
00:25:51.640the hands of colonialism. When you speak of objects on the moon, it reminds me of a work that
00:26:02.220I made last year as well that did consider plant relations. I named it Nibini Goose,
00:26:11.380which is our word for the month of June and it means uh trees fully leafed so Gemini season
00:26:21.300is a fun time for that but that's when we start seeing fruiting happen and uh the subtitle of
00:26:29.680the work is basket on the moon in the center of the artwork is um a basket that uses our
00:26:37.660traditional Mi'kmaq practices called jikjij, which are these sort of curled weavings that
00:26:46.480go into the structure of the basket in a unique way that is deeply tied to our ancestral
00:26:55.960knowledges. And there's a young artist who was acknowledged by, I believe it was NASA or the
00:27:06.780Canadian Space Station and was able to see one of her miniature baskets on the moon as well.
00:27:17.300In my artwork, it has sort of a sloshing rainbow that looks like the equality flag
00:27:24.620and the continuum of those colors, painting the landscape and distinguishing the separation
00:27:32.140between night sky and day sky and the plant knowledges on both sides, the ones that are
00:27:40.000closed and secret and the ones that are public knowledge or easily made visible.
00:27:48.560And so I wanted to pay homage to her, her basketry, Gesedachan basketry, and her name
00:27:59.200is Shanna Francis. There's something deeply inspiring about seeing someone doing the work
00:28:07.520to maintain the tradition, maintain the practice, and carry it forward, and continue to create
00:28:17.020beautiful, masterful weavings that will pass on to future generations and not remain in that
00:28:25.220antiquity or like this idea of the past. What a tension to try to hold an ancient knowledge
00:28:33.140and bring it forward without making it vulnerable to extraction like that's such a delicate dance
00:28:41.020that's that's so much emotional and intellectual and spiritual labor to piece those pieces out
00:28:47.020I wonder if you both would be open to expanding on that idea especially as it relates to
00:28:54.900futures futurisms how do we how do we draw towards a beautiful future a peaceful future
00:29:05.540how do we even sketch it how do we even take steps toward it when things are you know in
00:29:12.880in eclipse times maybe when things are really really fucking dark what have you learned from0.59
00:29:18.760your multiple identities from your own experience with the work your own experience with life how do
00:29:25.640we do it yeah there's so much here I really appreciate what you were saying Amanda about
00:29:31.180that dance you know that like process that we go through and I feel like one of the big reasons why
00:29:39.500you know I was at UC Berkeley in my in the MFA program and I was really inspired to see a lot
00:29:45.900of Indigenous artists who came and visited. I was in the new media program, and we had a lot of
00:29:52.080folks come who are finding ways to share their work, their art, their knowledge through digital
00:29:59.320forms. And I feel like I've definitely felt a lot of conflict around bringing some of these
00:30:06.780practices and ideas into certain spaces. And it is something that has also opened up
00:30:14.300like possibility in terms of wanting to imagine other ways of being or relating and existing
00:30:20.560and then you know kind of playing or working with that tension and starting to wonder like okay
00:30:28.860if I don't feel safe enough to bring some of my community's teachings into this space what can I
00:30:35.100bring into this space right what makes sense here or you know what something that you mentioned
00:30:40.540earlier too of like if Indigenous art is only seen through the lens of history how can we help
00:30:47.660to destabilize that how can we help to infuse imagination into what has been removed right
00:30:56.140this lack of imagination of you know being able to imagine Indigenous art and people and communities
00:31:02.840in the future and I do feel like that is something that has been so exciting for me to see a lot of
00:31:09.740Indigenous artists really taking up more and more space within what in the West we call the
00:31:15.480contemporary art realm and to really find ways to translate, reinterpret, and also just, you know,
00:31:24.980recreate or conjure new forms and new ways of thinking. And I do feel like that to me is a way
00:31:31.800of casting a light or casting a way of seeking possibility within what feels impossible or what
00:31:40.640within what feels really dark and heavy and I do feel like a big part of the state and empire's
00:31:48.700apparatus wants us to feel hopeless and feel like we don't have a way out and then at the same time
00:31:55.560And I do feel like there are so many stories from, you know, my community, for example, that do speak about these moments of impossibility and how the ancestors, how different plant, animal and, you know, earth can have come forward to support.
00:32:15.180And I do feel like that lack of hope, it also wants us to disconnect from those relationships that are so fully there to support us.
00:32:25.960And I think that is part of what's been really encouraging me to remind people that we have a lot of relations, both living and non-living, both in this realm and in other realms that are here to support us, that are here to guide us and that want to come forward and offer us these bits, these passageways, these bits of information or these downloads that can really guide us into creating within this moment of
00:32:55.960darkness and impossibility and I've also just been really yeah just sitting with like
00:33:03.560the magic that can happen when you do that you know one thing I'm feeling called to share
00:33:09.440is a couple years ago I you know been in my own practices with communing with my ancestors was
00:33:17.500receiving a message that I needed to create an altar to three different goddesses and that I
00:33:23.560needed to create an altar that really connected with the cycles of rain and help to bring forward
00:33:30.100rain. And I just kept getting this message within my own personal moments of communion. And it ended
00:33:36.580up leading me to create this piece that is called Three of Cups, because I pulled the Three of Cups
00:33:42.160tarot card when I first started this work. But it's also called Tate Niera, which is a celebration,
00:33:48.480a ceremony that happens once a year to reify and reconnect with different deities that support
00:33:55.740rain and support the growth of plants and the health of community. And what was so profound
00:34:02.800for me was that, you know, I was doing this work while I was in the Bay. I was like planning all
00:34:06.840this and like kind of organizing all this. And I moved to Los Angeles and I met another artist
00:34:13.140here named Sara Rosalina, who is also Virarica from the same community that I'm from, but I
00:34:18.020didn't know and she had also gotten the same message in her own work and had created this
00:34:24.300beautiful sculpture that was meant to be in a park and it was meant to conjure the rain also
00:34:30.940and meant to connect and bring forward rain both of our projects were installed at the same time
00:34:37.360in different spaces and they also happened to be during the time that california because it was
00:34:44.900here in California, got the most rain we've had in over 100 years. And that was just so moving to
00:34:52.460me to see that our ancestors are really speaking to us and guiding us. And time and space doesn't
00:35:00.440matter. It doesn't matter if you know or don't know someone, the ancestors are there speaking
00:35:05.480to us. And so I just really wanted to share that just because I do feel like, you know, this,
00:35:10.900the narratives or the cosmologies, if you even call it that, that the West is selling is really
00:35:17.580disconnecting us from these relationships. And so I really do feel like it's so important to
00:35:22.280remind people that there are so many relations that we can connect with. And I do feel like
00:35:27.460it starts with our imagination, our ability to be open to these possibilities.
00:35:33.000That's so beautiful. I had full body shivers when you're talking about the rain. And to think of
00:35:37.580the ancestors that are there you know beyond the ones we know the names of many of us we've lost
00:35:42.440so many generations of names but that doesn't mean they aren't there singing about the rain
00:35:48.100yeah i just had a flood of so many things i want to say all at the same time and they're
00:35:56.580causing a traffic jam in my mouth like which one's gonna come out first but at that same time
00:36:06.340I think what I'm feeling called to say is with the guidance of recognizing patterns, it's become really important for me to acknowledge and discern between my generosity of seeing the infinite potential and friends and allies and what is reality and what's presently there
00:36:35.120and what we have the capacity for and really listening to that gut and I have been misled at
00:36:43.940times to be overly generous with what I share and find the distinction between friend and enemy a
00:36:55.300little bit like elusive or like unclear and I think that kind of happens because we're very
00:37:03.140complex beings but that voice that feeling the little the gut sound the singing inside sometimes
00:37:13.580it could be so quiet sometimes it's really loud when you really have a gut feeling and then
00:37:18.380sometimes you try something out with trust but apprehension as well because you hope for something
00:37:31.320better and for things not to repeat themselves but i continue on that not to just be like negative
00:37:39.180but to also say that that voice is purposeful and it's it's always there it's the act of listening
00:37:48.080and also the the act of choices and being very aware of the choices of the people around you
00:37:55.400I spent my morning kind of scrolling my social media, as you do, before doing the things that you should, like acknowledge life around you.
00:38:08.980um but the post that i saw was highlighting wizard bison and her role as a storyteller
00:38:21.800and her choice to speak and communicate on her platform with the intention to learn english
00:38:30.160and communicate with that audience and i think about this in a multitude of ways
00:38:38.240one is when you uplift your own community's sovereign practices you're in a relationship
00:38:48.820with them to build them and to think about that future to fortify the things that are good
00:38:57.300and create that guidance create a little reprieve or safety from the violence out there
00:39:05.460and to work together to acknowledge that collective healing happens on a generational
00:39:11.880level it doesn't only happen within an individual it happens because we're learning to trust one
00:39:19.940another we're learning to navigate trauma we're learning to celebrate the gifts that come from
00:39:27.280our vision and from our wisdom that comes from those hard truths as well the other thing that
00:39:34.240I think about is how we have non-hierarchical roles in clans and you may have a leader but
00:39:43.740a leader isn't put on the top they're sometimes in the back protecting the elders protecting the
00:39:52.420children and the most vulnerable they're the watchful eyes and there's this conflation between
00:39:58.300hyper individualism of the West and the idea of leadership as demonstrated by actions of bringing
00:40:06.160out the strengths of everyone around you so when I think of the choice that we make to speak
00:40:18.320to something outside like not using our native tongue there's a there's a prayer and there's
00:40:28.080a pleading there's like a begging for understanding and for people to act in solidarity
00:40:41.040to see beauty in her storytelling the generosity in her storytelling
00:40:48.260and also taking in the discipline of journalism of just stating the facts even through suffering
00:40:59.100that's very deep and just considering that people tend to find empathy through very specific and
00:41:12.780narrow idea of how a story is told and how they are positioned within it as well.
00:41:21.580It's like we love the story of a hero or an underdog, and we want to see ourselves within