In the beginning, as one version of the Haudenosaunee creation story tells, there was only water and sky. According to oral tradition, when the Sky Woman became pregnant, she fell through a hole in the clouds. While many animals guided her descent as she fell, she eventually found a place on the turtle's back. They worked together, with the help of other aquatic creatures, to lift the earth from the depths of these primordial waters and create what we now know as our land.
The new immersive experience, “Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa'kówa í:se Onkwehonwe”, is a vivid retelling of this creation story by a multimedia artist. Jackson 2bearsalso known as Technician Ohkwa:ri (Kanien'kehà:ka), Ida Ely Rubin Artist in Residence 2022-24 at the MIT Center for Art, Science and technology. “A lot of what drives my work is finding new ways to keep Haudenosaunee teachings and stories alive in our communities, finding new ways to tell them, but also helping with the transmission and transformation of those stories as they are for us, a living part. of our cultural practice,” she states.
A virtual recreation of the traditional longhouse.
2bears was first inspired to create a virtual reality version of a longhouse, a traditional Haudenosaunee structure, in collaboration with Through the red door, an indigenous-owned media company in Six Nations of the Grand River that 2bears calls home. The longhouse is not just a “functional dwelling,” says 2bears, but an important spiritual and cultural center where creation myths are shared. “While we were developing the project, one of our knowledge keepers in the community told us that longhouses are not structures, they are not the materials they are made of,” 2bears recalls, “It's about the people, the Haudenosaunee people “And it is our creative cultural practices in that space that make it a sacred place.”
The virtual recreation of the longhouse connects storytelling to the physical landscape, while providing a shared space for community members to gather. In the Haudenosaunee worldview, 2bears says, “stories are both enduring, but also dimensional.” With “Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa'kówa í:se Onkwehonwe,” the longhouse came to life with drumming, dancing, knowledge sharing and storytelling. The immersive experience was designed to be communal. “We wanted to develop a story where we could work with a group of other people instead of just having a writer or director,” says 2bears, “We didn't want to make headphones. We wanted to do something where we could be together, which is part of the longhouse mentality,” he says.
The power of collaboration
2bears produced the project with the support of Co-creation studio at MIT Open Documentary Laboratory. “We think of co-creation as a dance, as a way of working that challenges the notion of the singular author, the only point of view,” says documentary filmmaker Kat Cizek, artistic director and co-founder of the studio, who began her work at MIT as CAST visiting artist. “And Jackson does that. He does it within the Six Nations community, but also with other communities and other indigenous artists.”
In an individualistic society that so often centers the idea of the singular author, 2bears' practice offers a powerful example of what it means to work as a collective, Cizek says. “I think it's very difficult to operate in any discipline without some level of collaboration,” he says. “What's different about co-creation for us is that people come into the room without a set agenda. “You walk into the room and you come with questions and curiosity about what you could do together.”
2bears at MIT
At first, 2bears thought that his stay at MIT would help him with the technical part of his job. But over time, he discovered a rich community at MIT, a place to explore broader philosophical questions related to technology, indigenous knowledge, and artificial intelligence. “Very often we think about not only human intelligence, but also animal intelligence and the spirit of the sky, the trees, the grass and the living earth,” says 2bears, “and I see that reflected here at school. “
In 2023, 2bears participated in the Co-Creation Studio's Immersive Indigenous Incubator at MIT, a landmark gathering of 10 Indigenous artists, who toured MIT labs and met with Indigenous leaders from MIT and beyond. As part of the summit, he shared “Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa'kówa í:se Onkwehonwe” as a work in progress. This spring, he presented the latest version of the work at MIT in smaller settings with student groups and at a large public conference presented by CAST and the Arts, Culture, and technology Program. Her “experimental method of storytelling and communication really conveys the power of what it means to be a community as an Indigenous person and the unique beauty of all of our people,” says Nicole McGaa, Oglala Lakota, co-chair of MIT Native American. Indigenous Association.
Tell stories in 360 degrees
The virtual recreation of 2bear became even more important after the community's longhouse unexpectedly burned down mid-process, after the team had created 3D scans of the structure. With no building to project onto, they used ingenuity and creativity to pivot to the current iteration of the project.
The immersive experience was notable for its large size: 8-foot-tall images reproduced on a 34-foot-diameter canvas screen. With video mapping using multiple projectors and 14-channel surround sound, the story of Sky Woman descending on Turtle Island took on immense shape. It premiered at the 2RO MEDIA Festival and garnered an enthusiastic response from the Six Nations community. “It was so beautiful. You can look in any direction and something is happening,” says Gary Joseph, director of Thru the RedDoor. “It affects you in a way that you didn't think you could be affected because you're seeing the things that are sacred to you expressed in a way that you never imagined.”
In the future, 2bears hopes to make the installation more interactive, so that participants can participate in the experience in their own way, creating multiple versions of the creation story. “I've been thinking about it as creating a living installation,” he says. “It really was a community project and I couldn't have been happier with the result. And I'm very excited about where I see this project going in the future.”
