HUDSON — JUPITER NIGHTS — Basilica Hudson’s new weekly series of arts events in its Gallery building — continues with a collaboration with Forge Project, a Native-led decolonial art and education initiative, May 26.
At 6 p.m., Inaugural 2021 Forge Fellow Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians), an award-winning filmmaker and photographer, will join Forge Project executive director Candice Hopkins (Tlingit) for an in-depth conversation on his practice.
Following the conversation, Basilica will screen two of Sky Hopinka’s films in its Gallery building (adjacent to the main building on campus).
Dislocation Blues
Total Run Time: 16:57
HD video, stereo, color
2017
An incomplete and imperfect portrait of reflections from Standing Rock. Cleo Keahna recounts his experiences entering, being at, and leaving the camp and the difficulties and the reluctance in looking back with a clear and critical eye. Terry Running Wild describes what his camp is like, and what he hopes it will become.
Fainting Spells
Total run time: 10:45
HD video, stereo, color
2018
Told through recollections of youth, learning, lore, and departure, this is an imagined myth for the Xąwįska, or the Indian Pipe Plant - used by the Ho-Chunk to revive those who have fainted.
At 8 p.m., acclaimed experimental musician and 2022 Forge Fellow Laura Ortman (White Mountain Apache) will perform as part of Basilica’s Jupiter Nights summer series (tickets required, limited seating; advance purchase here).
About Laura Ortman
A soloist musician, composer and vibrant collaborator, Laura Ortman creates across multiple platforms, including recorded albums, live performances, and filmic and artistic soundtracks. She has collaborated with artists such as Tony Conrad, Jock Soto, Raven Chacon, Nanobah Becker, Okkyung Lee, Martin Bisi, Jeffrey Gibson, Caroline Monnet, Tanya Lukin Linklater, Martha Colburn, and as part of the trio, In Defense of Memory. An inquisitive and exquisite violinist, Ortman is versed in Apache violin, piano, electric guitar, keyboards, and amplified violin, often sings through a megaphone. She is a producer of capacious field recordings.
About Sky Hopinka
Sky Hopinka was born and raised in Ferndale, Washington and spent a number of years in Palm Springs and Riverside, CA; Portland, OR; and Milwaukee, WI. In Portland, he studied and taught chinuk wawa, a language indigenous to the Lower Columbia River Basin. His video, photo, and text work centers around personal positions of Indigenous homeland and landscape, designs of language as containers of culture expressed through personal, documentary, and non-fictional forms of media. He received his BA from Portland State University in Liberal Arts and his MFA in Film, Video, Animation, and New Genres from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and teaches at Bard College.
About Candice Hopkins
Candice Hopkins is a citizen of Carcross/Tagish First Nation and lives in Red Hook, New York. Her writing and curatorial practice explores the intersections of history, contemporary art, and indigeneity. She worked as senior curator for the 2019 and 2022 editions of the Toronto Biennial of Art and was part of the curatorial team for the Canadian Pavilion of the 58th Venice Biennale, featuring the work of the media art collective Isuma. She is co-curator of notable exhibitions including Art for New Understanding: Native Voices 1950s to Now; the 2018 SITE Santa Fe biennial, Casa Tomada; documenta 14 in Athens, Greece, and Kassel, Germany; Sakahàn:
About Forge Project
Forge Project is a Native-led initiative centered on Indigenous art, decolonial education, and supporting leaders in culture, food security, and land justice. Located on the unceded homelands of the Muh-he-con-ne-ok in Upstate New York, Forge Project works to upend political and social systems formed through generations of settler colonialism.
About Basilica Hudson
Housed in a solar powered, reclaimed 1880s industrial factory, Basilica Hudson, a nonprofit multidisciplinary art center located in Hudson NY, welcomes over 20,000 visitors each season to genre-pushing music festivals, large scale marketplace events, regular film screenings, an artist in residency program, public installations and other community gatherings. The majority of its programs are free or sliding scale.