In the Main Gallery, Modern Fuel presents condolence, an ongoing photo and video series by the artist Greg Staats that depicts the process of his reconnection with a traditional Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] restorative aesthetic. The sadness that is felt from his personal loss of the Mohawk language and subsequent worldview and the networks defined by culture motivates Greg Staats’s recent video and photographic works to act as a series of mnemonic devices. In place of this systemic deficit, he has assembled and created an archive of photographic images and documents, both personal and familial. This restitution and the residual visual documents produced by it create and maintain strong connections with the land, nation, community, and family.
On June 18th at 7pm, Staats will present his performance, untitled_liminal_ effort, the first of a series of attempts by the artist to redefine his relationship to the Haudenosaunee [Iroquois] concept of condolence. Staats films (and records) his own live performance during which his hesitations and breath expose an underlying emotional and vulnerable dialogue: confronting the fear of the loss of self, a state of mind further reflected by the codified and heightening voice of the dark wampum string while the screen becomes its mnemonic support.
