This new body of photographs and installation works combined with earlier works from the beginning my investigation into condolence have a cumulative effect that references the psychological histories of public and private within a Haudenosaunee linguistic and mnemonic continuum linked to place. At the edge of condolence and within the liminal space prior to renewal, lies a hesitancy to move forward and while external/internal barriers must be overcome the process has to be completed with the help of others as witnesses. This ceremonial movement is compared to moving from the darkness of the forest into the clearing where the light illuminates the breath and one’s footing becomes clearer. The translation for the Mid-Winter (renewal) ceremony Gaihwayao:ni: is encouragement, employing reciprocal gestures and words, repeatable to lifting up the mind after it has dropped down during condolence and/or trauma. 

These images and objects were gathered from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory (the largest Carolinian forest left in Canada) and from the reciprocity of ceremonial spaces and actions that the body and groups of bodies have traversed through time and are embodied within the landscape and memory of the people. Therefore these images are culturally recognizable as they are not only sites from the reserve but are also visualizations of the gestures of bundles from an unchanging narrative either condolence, mid-winter (renewal) ceremonies found within the Great Law of Peace which emphasizes inclusion or the creation story itself. The childhood boreal markers including the white pine act as recurring witnesses in my work. The physicality of these trees transport me into the cultural embrace and replenish a systemic deficit which included language, an entrance into a mindful relationship and responsibilities to the ceremonial lifecycle of birth, death, the natural world and the elevation of our minds: an encouragement.

Greg Staats, Kanien'kehá:ka (Mohawk), (b. Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory). Staats’ lens-based work, video installation/performance and sculpture, combines language, mnemonics and the natural world as an ongoing process of visualizing a Haudenosaunee restorative aesthetic that defines relational multiplicities with trauma and renewal. Trauma that is felt from an existential displacement from the Kanien'kehá:ka language and subsequent relational worldview, has motivated recent sequencing within a mnemonic continuum. In place of this systemic linguistic deficit, Staats has assembled and created an archive of images and documents, both personal and familial. Installation works combine, the performative burdens of condolence, renewal and his continuously re-imagined role as observer and participant, in an effort to elevate the mind and countervail complex trauma, dissociation and loss of self. This archive, an externalization of what is carried within the body, a repository, has enabled Staats to move toward renewal in dialogue with the psychic space where the overwhelming is held.