Ahead of Thanksgiving, I’m thinking about the land we Americans get to call home. It was not a ‘pristine wilderness’ for the founding father’s taking. Rather, it was a land stewarded for thousands of years by Indigenous communities, knowledge, and technology.
One of my favorite Indigenous technologies is the agricultural system known as the Three Sisters. Originating in Mesoamerica over 6,000 years ago, it spread across across Turtle Island (aka North America), and was adopted by the Haudenosaunee (e.g. Iroquois, whose lands are what is present date upstate New York) as their creation story.
According to the myth, Earth Woman was the daughter of Sky Woman. Earth Woman had twin sons - one good, one evil. When evil twin killed his mother, she asked for her body to sustain the people, and from it was birth the Three Sisters. Corn, beans and squash grew from her breast, hands and navel respectively. In practice, corn offers a trellis for the beans to grow, beans inject nitrogen into the soil necessary to sustain corn and squash, and squash offers shade to all the young corn and bean seedlings. Apparently the sunflower is the often forgotten fourth sister, who stands tall and looks pretty (while attracting pollinators ;)
Grateful to learn from
@skawennati about the Three Sisters and “Tionhnhéhkwen,” or “How They Sustain Us,” the name of her work that depicts the Three Sisters as superheroes evolving (and dancing / rapping all the way) through four stages of history: before colonization, at first contact, through genetic modification, and five minutes into the future. Beyond grateful to work with her and her brilliant team to bring the sisters to life in “They Said Get Ready,” revealed in #encodedatthemet. Flying over the facade, the sisters remind us of the legacy stewardship and ancestral technologies that have long existed and will continue to be role models for how we care for this land and each other.
ENCODED is an unsanctioned exhibit at
@metmuseum accessible to anyone with a smartphone until Dec 31st, and co-curated by
@amplifierart @tracyrectorart
#IndigenousFutures #IndigenousTechnology #augmentedreality #ThreeSisters #newyork #immersive
![Last year, during our Survival Strategies program, artist @kalladomcdowell read “Revolutionary Letter #75 (RANT)” by beat poet Diane di Prima. In it, her proclamation hits hard:“THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST THE IMAGINATION.”Over the past year, it feels like we’ve dealt with an assault on our ability to world build beyond the deluge of toxic narratives. And, in ways, we are nearing “the ultimate famine [that] is the starvation of the imagination. As we enter 2026, perhaps the question isn’t what we’ll do, or achieve, or fight against…… but what we dare to imagine and build towards.It’s been one year since the Eaton and Palisades Fires devastated Los Angeles. Survival Strategies emerged from these devastating winds and flames to raise relief funds, and in a moment of crisis, return to one of our oldest technologies: the care that emerges from collective imagining. In support of @griefxhope and @laayudanetwork, we partnered with @artifacts_lab @sohohouse @makeroom.la @bankmabsociety and in collaboration with our friends at @francoisghebaly @sowandtailor @gregitooo to raise over $5k for artists and arts workers who lost homes, studios, and for some, a lifetime of work.The news cycle has moved on, the developers are buying large lots of land, and the permits have been issued to rebuild, but many Black and Latino communities still struggle. Keep supporting ongoing Eaton Fire relief efforts and the communities in Altadena touched by this devastation, donate here:Link in bio - /donate/lafires2025?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bioSurvival Strategies included performances by @dleaudleau @paigeemery_ @neazkohani @xin_liu_studio @jaycarlon @white_boy_scream @vera.sola @kalladomcdowell @idealblackfemale @crystaljiko @olivekimoto @juliet__mendoza](https://sp1.picnob.com/p/pt_6735303864251738521051_0_1030e3e35228028ab920843a98c99883.jpg?o=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&h=e079543f0877a65abb1d4e51dfd968c7)
