Heart Basket, 1992

A room filled with strawberry boxes, suspended with invisible fishing wire half an inch above the floor, creates a disconcerting negotiation of bodies and unseen forces, as the slightest movement of air from bodies moving through the space (along with their inevitably bumping into the boxes) sets them into slight motion. This movement forces viewers/participants to be mindful of one another while gingerly picking their way between the slow but yet precariously swinging boxes. These large flat 2’x3’ wooden boxes create an illusion of the floor shifting by its own volition akin to the way my own worldview is perpetually challenged by individuals and institutions that privilege colonial logics. In Heart Basket, also titled Food for Reconciliation, points to Anishinaabe practices of deferring to strawberries as an other-than-human helper that help facilitate the healing process. The looping soundtrack is of a quiet breeze.