Colonial Climate, The Great Unraveling
2020, 7minutes 17seconds
A performance video work featuring a floating Yogini tracking 600 years of colonial exploitation of the Earth, against a backdrop of California’s 2020 firestorm and toxic smoke. With her consorts, her California Condor familiars (aka Thunderbirds) and a bee, and the cool, wet, gushing Yin feminine principal they counter white supremacy, misogyny, concepts of empire and plundering, dominion over earth, animals and peoples of foreign lands. Together they bring balance to the biospheric imbalance known as Climate Change.
Music written and performed by Mia Kaneen
Technical and camera assistant Bradford William Yip
Debuted in the 3D galleries of the virtual show:
INVOCATION DEMOCRACY, A Political and Mystical Virtual Exhibition
Presented by Pro Arts Commons, Oakland and curated by Monet Clark proartscommons.org/invocationdemocracy
Curator’s Statement
Art provides us with a liminal space wherein momentary suspensions from our patterned thoughts and identities can be experienced, allowing for us to align with new states of awareness. Art can reveal cultural biases and their impacts, function as a catalyst for change, and it builds culture. As we nationally and globally navigate through this time of political, social, environmental and health crises the voice of the artist is needed now more than ever. With a nod to Holistic Theory and Intersectional Feminism or what I like to refer to as Holistic Intersectionality, and through the synergy of the sum of its parts, INVOCATION DEMOCRACY provides a virtual space to reflect on and envision the preservation and repair of our democracy. Joining together painters, performance, video, interdisciplinary and recording artists from across the nation, INVOCATION DEMOCRACY provides an interstice for grief, a necessary step for action, and suggests that all of our intentions, actions and our votes matter, especially during this time of transitioning power structures.
INVOCATION DEMOCRACY proposes that a healthy democracy protects not only all of the people within its borders, but also the land within its boundaries, through policies which promote proper land stewardship and management, which includes protections of animals with respect to local and global ecosystems. It maintains that healthy regional democracies engage in practices which contribute healthfully to the global climate both socially, politically and environmentally. It explores the links between Climate Change and misogyny, empire, white supremacy and cultural biases that are dismissive of indigenous perspectives globally, the mystic, the intuitive, the feminine, and the sentience of animals and nature. INVOCATION DEMOCRACY contemplates the impacts of all of these on our ailing democracy, and just what it may take to transform it.
— Monet Clark, curator
An inspired artist’s talk for INVOCATION DEMOCRACY, A Political and Mystical Virtual Exhibition curated by Monet Clark and presented by Pro Arts Commons in Oakland, within 3D galleries. Topics include the interplay between climate justice, misogyny, Indigenous culture, human and animal rights, mysticism and our democracy; the liminality of artistic practice; and art as social activation; the legacy of Joseph Beuys; the mystic studies of Duchamp; the impact of Hilma af Klint; and more.
With mystic surrealist Penny Slinger; Native American artist and history interventionist Edgar Heap of Birds; cultural activist and Buddhist performance artist/filmmaker John DiLeva Halpern; performance, video, body artist Jennifer Locke; and moderated by curator and eco-feminist Artist Monet Clark; with cameos by ‘life as art’ activist Linda Montano, and Lady Monster, 7 of the 27 exhibitors in INVOCATION DEMOCRACY, up through Inauguration Day January 20, 2021, holding vigil for a peaceful transition of power and the democracy we envision. To enter the show click: proartscommons.org/invocationdemocracy
