Skite'kmujuawti

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Skite’kmujuawti was explained by Curtis Michael, a Mi’kmaq (Sipekne’katik) linguist to show the epistemological significance in how words are derived from our cosmologies. The suffix for the L’nuisimk word for Milky Way is road (awti), the prefix translates to ghost (skite’kmuj).

This work captures ‘holding ceremony with myself’. The project illustrates the process of readying oneself for initiation into cultural practices highlighting longing and desire for community connection and cultural teachings within the constraints of isolation. Landscapes traipse between physical and temporal spaces through compositing digital illustration and 3D animation with natural video footage– buoyed between spirit realms, imagination, visions and reality. Exposed vantage lines and paths reveal humility and transparency in incomplete learning processes, both spiritual and technological. Bringing sequestered information from alternate dimensions down to earth, challenging the animacy of space and activating bemused states of wonder.

I dream of land justice and invoke a spiritual incantation through intentional virtual space as an act of resistance. Ecological disruption and extractive actions by unseen corporate forces ongoingly impact Indigenous sovereignty and contribute to climate emergency, yet feel so impossible to touch.

In observation of recent social media movements like social distance pow wow, l'nuk have taken experimental measures to heal community in a pandemic world, bringing ceremony into spectrums not previously conceived. Ceremony is heavily based on physical gathering, some have challenged this by adapting to other means and nonphysical realms. Skite’kmujuawti is an imagining of delivered messages from animal and star beings.

Amour-Lynx engaged with mentors between 2020-2021, to create personal handmade regalia featured in Skite’kmujuawti. Lynx wears medicine attire informed by cultural protocol and Two Spirit realities, a ribbon skirt and moccasins incorporating motifs of star and plant knowledges, as well as gifted regalia items from beloved individuals.

I storytell about the act of becoming visible to your environment, as a two spirit l’nu; how regalia making is a community act and how queer identities are visually coded.

Where it's been: Celebration Square Art on Screens Festival, Geary Art Crawl, Daata.art,

Available for gallery exhibitions.

For Preview: https://daata.art/art/amanda-amour-lynx-skite-kmujuawti-milky-way-ghost-road