l i s t e n

Authors

  • Leah Decter NSCAD University

Abstract

Shot in the territory of the Anishinaabe, Métis, and Dakota Nations on Treaty 1 lands, this video is a response to the call for embodied territorial engagements. It is made up of five side-by-side vertical sections depicting different views of the river as the ice breaks up in spring. Shifting with the videographer’s breath and the movements of her body as she tries to remain still, the shots are not entirely stable, instead undulating slightly so that the horizon lines of each section match up only sporadically. As the sun sets, chunks of ice flow downstream, sloshing, groaning, and scraping along the shore. Overhanging branches rattle against the ice as it passes. Every now and then a bird calls out and the video ends with each vertical section fading out individually.

Author Biography

Leah Decter, NSCAD University

Dr. Leah Decter is an inter-media/performance artist and scholar based in Winnipeg, Canada, Treaty 1 Territory. She is also a Tier 2 Canada Research Chair in Creative Technologies and Community Engagement at NSCAD University. Her research, writing, and artwork/research-creation, created from a critical white settler perspective, contend with the ways artistic production can subvert colonial ideations embedded in the settler imaginary and contribute to decolonial and noncolonial paradigms. Decter holds a PhD in cultural studies from Queen’s University and an MFA in new media from Transart Institute.

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Published

2022-01-20

Issue

Vol. 7 No. 1-2 (2021): Performing (in) Place: Moving on/with the Land

Section

Editorial Notes

License

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