Decolonizing the Landscape Through Art and Language
Carlson's project reclaims the act of re-creating a place through drawing. She reimagines historic photos of Spirit Island and inserts her own artwork and text on top of them. Her artwork is an effort to reimagine the present and future of Indigenous peoples in a more positive way:
If drawings can initiate the destruction of an island, can drawing also aid in imagining ourselves richly, dynamic and complex? ("An Interview")
The act of visually reinserting a marker of the Indigenous presence re-projects the island in a way that reflects a different “potential future,” one that highlights rather than obscures the Indigenous presence.
Language is essential to the reclamation of Indigenous contemporaneities and futures, and Carlson’s project is part of a growing movement to reinstate Indigenous names to places that colonists have renamed. Her projection piece features text and place names in the Dakota, Ojibwe, and English languages. Languages are a reflection of the cultures that speak them, and thus languages expose the way that individuals interact with others and the world around them. Carlson describes,
Language is a 'big tool' of colonization. It affects our world views. For example, English is noun-heavy. An emphasis on objects, being, and ownership are important to a possessive world view. Anishinaabemowin is verb-based and an emphasis is placed on the relationship and action between things. But place names are very important because they are out in the public sphere and have been used to celebrate some real villains in Minneapolis ("An Interview")
Her projection piece features place names in the Dakota, English, and Ojibwe (Anishinaabemowin) languages:
Owámniomni – turbulent waters – Spirit Island – Manidoo Minisiniban
Dakhóta Makhóčhe – Dakota Land – Bwaanaki
Wakpá Tháŋka – great river – Gichi Ziibi
Ȟaȟáwakpa – River of the Waterfalls – Gaakaabikaang
Dakhóta Makhóčhe – Dakota Land – Bwaanaki
Wakpá Tháŋka – great river – Gichi Ziibi
Ȟaȟáwakpa – River of the Waterfalls – Gaakaabikaang
Still images from Carlson's The Uncompromising Hand (2017). From her 2018 Open Rivers article "On the Uncompromising Hand: Remembering Spirit Island."
Reestablishing Indigenous place names legitimizes Native relationships to the river and acknowledges the historic and ongoing cultural connection of Native peoples to the area. However, in maintaining English, Carlson does not erase the colonial history. Instead, she creates a space where colonial and Indigenous realities are forced to be publicly contemporaneous. The project places the language of the “villains” (English) in the same space as the Indigenous languages that have been obscured through colonialism. This co-presence not only reasserts Indigenous language and knowledge but also enables a recognition of the colonial forces that have attempted to erase Indigeneity.