Skawennati: From Skyworld to Cyberspace

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Skawennati, “Birth of an Avatar (Homage to Mariko Mori),” 2017, machinimagraph, inkjet print (photo courtesy of AUArts)

Skawennati’s From Skyworld to Cyberspace gives off a bright, upbeat pop-culture vibe that emanates from the raspberry pink walls of the Illingworth Kerr Gallery at the Alberta University of the Arts, and from the works on view. The galleries have been transformed into a utopian Cyberfeminist space presided over by the Montreal artist’s long-legged, lookalike avatar who meets you inside. Named xox, the avatar — wearing big double topknots, a black ribbon shirt regalia, a stiff horizontal black tutu, and black leather biker boots — has the presence of a pop star — significantly an Indigenous pop star. From her place in cyberspace, xox signals that although Indigenous people are both traditional and contemporary, contrary to being stuck in the past, they actively participate in the creation and consumption of vibrant contemporary culture.

Skawennati is an Indigenous Futurist for whom time is fluid. Past, present and future exist within it all at once, as her earlier work TimeTraveller^TM (2014) attests. The artist, who is Mohawk, Turtle Clan, inhabits the present, revisits the past and imagines the future of Indigenous identity and reality. From Skyworld to Cyberspace, curated by Matthew Ryan Smith for the McIntosh Gallery at Western University, links two groups of works, both made in 2017. Each consists of machinima, a cinematic production made using real-time computer graphics engines, and machinimagraphs, a term coined by Skawennati, which she defines as images made in a virtual environment. Rather than screen grabs from her machinima videos, the latter are related autonomous artworks, presented as highly coloured inkjet prints mounted on various materials. 

As the title of the show suggests, Smith proposes that the link between the Skyworld and cyberspace is a cosmic journey but given the coexistence and interconnection of past, present and future in the non-linear time of Skawennati’s virtual world, the idea of progression from one to the other is misleading. The journey is from Skyworld to Turtle Island — both of which exist at the same time as parts of a virtual Indigenous territory in Cyberspace. To create this world, Skawennati draws upon Haudenosaunee ancestral stories, science fiction, Cyberfeminism, and Indigenous Futurism to envision traditional Indigenous knowledge and ways of being in the present and future. 

In its other-worldly setting, She Falls for Ages is a retelling of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story in which a young woman jumps through a hole in a dying Skyworld to carry the seeds that will start the growth of a new world on the back of a turtle, a world that becomes Turtle Island (the Indigenous name for North America). Words Before All Else is an inclusive Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, the traditional Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, which xox recites in Mohawk, French and English. The solo performer in the three short machinima videos, xox is also represented in Generations of Play 3D as a set of dolls (a handmade corn-husk doll, an altered Barbie doll and a 3D print of Skawennati dressed as xox), and in machinimagraphs.  

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Skawennati, machinimagraphs from “Words Before all Else,” 2022, vinyl (photo courtesy of AUArts)

The artist modelled her avatar on Birth of a Star (1995) by the pioneering Japanese multimedia artist to whom she gives props in the title, Birth of an Avatar (Homage to Mariko Mori), made in 2017. Mori’s self-described “virtual pop star” took the form of a life-size sculpture and photographic prints. Skawennati’s avatar was created in the virtual environment of the gaming platform, Second Life. Skawennati is known as a pioneering artist in her own right for the development of CyberPowWow (1997-2004), the first Indigenous territory in cyberspace, and works such as TimeTraveller^TM. In the guise of her new avatar (her first in 1996 was a simple smiley face)  she represents a strong, urban Mohawk woman who breaks negative stereotypes that discrimination substitutes for another’s identity. 

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Skawennati, “Falling, Asleep: She Falls for Ages,”  2017 (photo courtesy of AUArts)

Identity and harmonious coexistence are common threads in contemporary movements such as Indigenous Futurism and the better-known Afrofuturism. A visionary storyteller, Skawennati presents the future of her community as thriving and prosperous and living in a decolonized world. It’s too bad that there is scant mention of Skawennati’s many important achievements in the show’s interpretation to give  context to this newer work. There is an exhibition catalogue but the reality is that the majority of viewers will not buy it. 

Skawennati will speak in the Stanford Perrott Lecture Theatre, at AUArts on Friday, March 8 from 4 to 5 p.m. A closing reception will follow. Don’t miss her. ■

Skawennati: From Skyworld to Cyberspace is on view at Illingworth Kerr Gallery, AUArts in Calgary now through March 9.

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