TimeTraveller™ by Skawennati

Skawennati lives and works in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, and her work circulates internationally. She was born in Kahnawà:ke in Mohawk Territory, and is a member of the Turtle Clan. Concerned with the absence of Indigenous peoples in the collective imagination of the future, over the past thirty years she has developed sculptures and textile and photographic works, as well as network-based projects and machinimas that bring Indigenous presence into cyberspace. Her work is celebrated for her futuristic representations of Indigenous people as she battles against tired stereotypes and highlights today’s vibrant Indigenous cultures.

Skawennati’s community engagement and collaborative approach are remarkable. As a youth, she became active with SAGE (Students Against Global Extermination) and Femmes autochtones du Québec and was a co-founder of Nation to Nation, a collective of First Nations artists. More recently, in 2019, she and artists Nadia Myre, Caroline Monnet, and Hannah Claus created the Indigenous artist-run centre daphne, a presentation and residency venue.

            Sensitive to the issues of her times, Skawennati quickly grasped the incredible potential of the Internet. In 1997, in recognition of the need for contemporary Indigenous artists to meet despite being separated by vast geographical distances, she organized, through Nation to Nation, CyberPowWow, a ground breaking online gallery featuring a mixed-reality event which took place roughly every two years until 2004. In 2005, she and Jason Edward Lewis founded Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research-creation network based at Concordia University, to help ensure that Indigenous people were represented in digital media, as producers as well as subjects.

            Skawennati’s occupation of cyberspace at the turn of the millennium demonstrated a new space to collaborate and explore. New art practices proliferated in parallel with the emergence of Indigenous activism, institutional changes, and commissions on the state of Indigenous Peoples. As we witness a true cultural reform, it becomes clear that the popularization of the Internet provided a new vehicle for Skawennati and her peers to create a shared future. TimeTraveller™, through both its subject and its medium, testifies to this context of emancipation.

The word “machinima” is a combination of the words “machine” and “cinema.” It is used to describe a movie made in a virtual environment. The virtual setting that Skawennati has used since 2007 is Second Life, a highly customizable, multi-player, online world. On an island that AbTeC acquired in this space, Skawennati, with the help of a small team, builds sets, personalizes avatars, choreographs their actions, and then shoots scenes, which she later edits.  She engages people from her community to be the voices of the characters and works with musicians and a sound designer to add depth to the worlds she creates.