Joey Big Snake

TIPI_LOOPS.dreamwaves & TIPI_LOOPS.journal.entry.ourplace are video installation works part of a larger collaboration exploring ideas of urban indigenous existence and the individual within relation to place. The works are displayed on two 65" screens with headphones on each monitor. The visuals are made from a collection of clips curated by Kaitlyn Purcell and her students at UCalgary, of familiar and key locations. These videos are in a vertical format with each having it's own visual representations. The audio consists of a poem by Kaitlyn Purcell (dreamwaves) and a journal entry by Jeremy Bobosky (journal.entry.ourplace), mixed with sounds that were recorded from Alberta nature and urban outdoors. The audio-visual experience leads the viewer inside concepts of Indigenous identity and living, we consider what is and where is 'our place'. The works came together as a reflection by Kaitlyn Purcell, Brendon Many Bears and Joey Big Snake on themes from the fall 2021 exhibition RELATIONS: Diaspora and Painting, with contributions to their work from UCalgary students Jeremy Bobosky, Maci Jordan and Laurencine Saddleback—completing this constellation.























The viewer is one-on-one with what they hear and what they see on each monitor. The monitors are spread apart in a way where you're only experiencing one work each at a time. The visuals are made with the intent of replicating the build of the tipi, mainly the vertical structure that exists on tipi designs. From the bottom of the tipi that is land/water, to the top that has the constellations Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper, it is shown on the two screens as a short loop. Each monitor has an audio track that to contemplates indigenous place-thought/ How we can regain connection back to the world as the new generation of indigenous peoples. The fight of identity and the struggle to belong.


At Telus Spark's indigenous evening event, Elder Diana Melting Tallow said "Blackfoot's were considered the phantoms of the plains, once you turned and had a chance to look back, we were already gone." She was discussing this in relation to home (Treaty 7 & Blackfoot Confederacy Territory), our home was everywhere on the plains and we moved freely. Ever since I heard this, it has always stuck with me. My work in TIPI_LOOPS is me reconciling these thoughts of home and where I exist in this place.

This work has become possible because of collaborators and contributors Jeremy Bobosky, Maci Jordan, Brendon Many Bears, Kaitlyn Purcell, Laurencine Saddleback and the great people at Esker Foundation. It will active at the Esker from January 21 2022, until April 15, 2022. There will be an artist talk about the collaboration with all involved mid March.