KC Adams and Michelle Wilson, Honouring, 2021

Two-channel video documentation of performance, (14:09)

Contributors: Unnamed young bison bull, Judith Adams, Mac Gray Adams, Josh Gray, Casey Koyczan, Asa Cruikshank, Matt Dupont, Angus Cruikshank, Matt Truman

Description

Honouring, a performance by KC Adams and Michelle Wilson, is an attempt to recall a bison robe from a static and objectified state. After Michelle removed the taxidermized hide during a durational performance at the Museum of Ontario Archaeology and restored it in her home (documented in Reclaim and Restore), KC and Michelle honoured the young bull's remains by transferring their stewardship, enabling KC to return the hide to an active existence through her cultural and Land-based teachings. Honouring presents a call and response on distant lands. In this two-channel video, KC receives the hide, singing a song to honour its gift and using it as a catalyst to teach her mother, Judy and son, Mac, about reciprocal relations with water and land through clay. Michelle then shared these teachings with her daughter, Asa. This work is meant to model mutuality among all relations and a vision for a new way forward anchored in inherited, land-based traditions.