For This Land - Jackson 2bears
3-Channel Video Installation
A collaboration Janet Rogers
Documentation is from the Audain Gallery in the Visual Arts Department at the University of Victoria
The “For this Land” series was inspired by Sioux philosopher Vine Deloria jr.—in particular, his 1998 book from which the title of this project is borrowed. What I find compelling is Deloria’s argument about an incommensurability between Western theology and Indigenous spirituality in that the first is rooted in a temporal logic, and latter in a ‘spatial’ philosophy. Deloria says, Indigenous world-views are spatial because they privilege a spiritual relationship to ‘place’ and, therefore, tribal spiritual sensibilities emerge from attention given to the landscape and geographical orientation—as the elders say, we write our stories, our histories on the Land.
