Curatorial Statement

My MFA Exhibit and Thesis showcases an Alaska Native Fish Camp. As Salmon make their migrations back to their spawning grounds, our familial camps may end their lives, but our intervention is deeply embedded with honor and prayer. The pinnacle of these Matriarchal Fish Camps are the Tavasr (‘Ulu’ in Deg Xiang) on the Processing Table. But here, there are material representations of Salmon being processed. Glass embodies the present; our momentary ephemerality, and metal personifies our Indigenous Land Based Eternity.

Through the ingenuity and power of our cultures, we suspend the Salmon within our Smokehouses. Because of that, as the smoke rises within this structure, it preserves the fish, and they are empowered to make their transmigration's into eternity. This tradition may be fairly new, but with it, we have found new ways to exalt their bodies, lives, and spirits. Each echelon of the Smokehouse personifies knowledge/lessons we have always known since time immemorial. A core concept that presented itself from my graduate work was a framework called 'The Subsistence of Creation'. This practice utilizes Alaska Native Subsistence mindsets and practices from the land and implements them directly into the studio and its processes.