Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa’kówa í:se Onkwehonwe is a multifaceted research project, a series of site-specific artworks developed in-community, and Multimedia Panoramic Installation by 2RO MEDIA, made in collaboration with members of the Six Nations Community. The installation consists of a 34ft panorama screen, where multiple video projectors are used to create an immersive environment, with 14.2 channel surround/ambisonics sound. This artwork is a fictional re-telling of the Haudenosaunee Creation Story, with a cyclical narrative that weaves through the past, present, and future.

As Haudenosaunee people, the longhouse is an enduring symbol of the strength of our Rotinonshonni (Iroquois Confederacy), as it signifies a way of living together as a League of Nations under the Great Law of Peace—the Kayanereh:kowa. Our enduring sense of community is mirrored in the longhouse structure; it is emblematic of our diverse creative and cultural practices, which are connected back our traditional teachings as much as they are today animated by contemporary technologies and production techniques. With this in mind we created this large-scale installation taking inspiration from the longhouse structure and what it represents to our people.

January Rogers and I are both Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawks) of the Six Nations of the Grand River, and have been collaborating on projects as 2RO MEDIA since 2014. Our current creative efforts focus on exploring our relationship(s) to our home territory as part of a series we have called For this Land. As 2RO MEDIA we have been interested in the spatiality of storytelling—how stories can be dimensional as well as durational; how narratives are intricately interconnected with ‘place’ and the landscape. As Onkwehonwe we think of the landscape as a living, animate, and embodied archive; with this new project, we wanted to explore the idea of embodied storytelling and the ways in which we can participate with, as well as be immersed in, story. For Onkwehonwe, our knowledge systems are maintained, mobilized, and transferred through our oral traditions, but also through our creative cultural practices (in songs, dances, ceremonial praxis). For us, this project was about mobilizing digital technologies as a means to support the transmission, transformation, innovation, and expression of Onkwehonwea (Indigenous ways of knowing/being), and meant to serve as a way to for us to participate in the sharing of our stories and cultural knowledge with the next generations.  

At the core, this artwork is an exploration of the internalization of one’s traditional territory, how our environments (physical and virtual) are deeply intertwined with our identities as Indigenous people, and the interiority of personal and collective experience—this is what Leroy Little Bear has called the “natural laws of Interdependance” when referring to the living archive of land-based narratives. In essence, this project is about exploring the ‘Indigenous Future Imaginary’, while remaining dedicated to conscious recognition of traditional Kanien’kehaka creative and cultural practices. Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa’kówa is about performative storytelling and creating interconnected relationships with the living archive of ‘place,’ which has to do with traversing and crossing cultural and territorial narratives. It is about engaging in a series of conversations with the land with the intent of creating new site-specific performances and, ultimately, a large-scale immersive multimedia installation using new digital languages. As Onkwehonwe we think of our cultural narratives as being connected to both the physical and spiritual world; indeed, we write our stories-on-the-land, which we think of as being dimensional (spatial), as well as durational. To think of cultural history in this way is to understand how we are interconnected with the land, and how storytelling is an embodied/immersive process that functions in reciprocity with all-our-relations. For this project we worked in/with our community, building on existing relationships we have with elders, knowledge-keepers, cultural organizations, and other artists in the Grand River communities of the Six Nations. This project was, at its core, a site-specific media installation; an artwork made in collaboration with site, place, story, and community.

This artwork premiered at the first annual 2RO MEDIA Festival 23 (October 19-23, 2023).