Bundle, 2011

This site-specific performance in Banff, Alberta, is a reflection on Indigenous land stewardship, connection to ancestors, futurity, and land-based art practice. While at an Indigenous arts residency, I was conducting early experiments to create shaky tent rocket ships using branches. However, collecting brush from Banff National Park is banned, even for Indigenous artists. It felt absurd to walk past the fallen brush in the park, through town, to the dump on the far side of town where the park debris is taken, and back again to collect the bundles of sticks I needed to make my rockets. The stick bundle became my companion on long walks through town. The bundle is my spaceship, my ancestors, a burden to tow, and a statement on ridiculous bureaucracy. I brought my bundle everywhere, up and down streets, into shops and restaurants, and into my studio. This bundle is both a haunting trace of colonialism and my co-conspirator in resurgence and resistance.