My Ghost Dance, Scavenged and Bartered

35mm movie film woven into a tapestry, rotating projector stand, video projector, 16mm film shot on a handmade pinhole camera transfered to video, Ghost Dance songs recorded by James Mooney in 1894, artist’s voice introducing herself in Ojibwe, her tribe’s language, which she is attempting to learn.

The piece started with a 10’ x 5’ tapestry I hand-wove with found theatrical 35mm motion picture film. This weaving became the fabric for a tipi structure. Inside the film tipi is a video projector on a low stand, made by collaborator Conor Fields, that rotates 360 degrees counterclockwise once a minute. The video projector plays 16mm film I shot on a handmade motion picture pinhole camera and videotaped from a live film projection. The audio in the piece is the sound of the 16mm projector I used during the telecine process, original Ghost Dance songs recorded by James Mooney in 1894 and my own voice struggling to introduce myself in Ojibwe, my tribe’s traditional language. These elements create a paracinematic event – light shining through film onto a white wall – abstracted by the distance of the film from the light source and the fact that the film is woven together into a still object and it is the light that moves instead. The images created in the darkened space become ghosts dancing across the walls, patterns of color and shadows of weaving.