03/01/2024
Fire Warrior, 2024
Czech and Japanese seed beads, cotton thread, nylon thread, beeswax, reclaimed bandages, copper, horsehair, mitigo asemaa, cedar, fire
A submission to tinypricksproject, a collective call for activist art that doesn’t often intersect with my community.
The piece itself reverberates the last words of a fire warrior, and echoes his phoenix energy in its flame charred edges. A blend of cotton, polyester, and synthetic rubber, the bandages comprise a material that would produce considerable smoke and ash and melt into skin if ignited against it.
It is both about the powerful spirit revealed through his actions, and the acrid toxicity of the tears that come from the demographic that makes up tinypricksproject’s main following (rhymes with light lemon). If this warrior, of the most privileged demographic in the world, can renounce his rigid post, number his days to less than one and offer it to this cause, I would assert that art that claims its clout by means of an activist label can manage a few pulled threads and keystrokes in the name of disruption and true reflection of our times.
The copper, horsehair, mitigo asemaa, and cedar affixed to the surface were removed, and the latter three burned in reciprocity before sending the piece away.
This post serves as the time stamp of the opportunity served up by Indigenous hands to amplify our voices in the way that these stitched words do. I’m not tagging the account because her response to receiving the physical piece is part of its concept. It’s been documented profusely in anticipation of any fate it may meet when it lands: whether it is discarded, destroyed, amplified, returned, or buried in the dark cabinet of an archive is an intentional reflection on the recipient.
Circus of tags 😷:
