Focusing on the Future: Seventh Generation Philosophy
Carlson critiques the lack of long-term foresight in acts of colonial imagination that visualized the construction of the Upper St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam. Her preoccupation with the imagery of a disembodied hand underscores the failure of colonists to sufficiently recognize the interconnectedness of all actions:
She emphasizes that the removal of Spirit Island for the construction of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam prioritized short-term gain over long-term environmental concern. As a result of the industrialization in Minneapolis that necessitated the removal of the island, “filtering oil out of our drinking water might [...] be our future” (“An Interview”). While the economic benefits of the lock ended only about fifty years after its construction, the social and environmental destruction caused by the island’s removal and the river’s industrialization continues.
Offering a different framework for decision-making than the short-sighted endeavors toward “progress” such as the construction of the St. Anthony Falls Lock and Dam, Carlson’s project promotes environmental and Indigenous-centered modes of decision-making that consider a longer timescale of pasts and futures. As an Anishinaabe artist, Carlson lives by the Seventh Generation philosophy (“An Interview”); this entails reflecting on one’s actions with respect to how they will impact those seven generations in the future and recognizing that one’s place in the present is shaped by those as far back as seven generations (Loew xv). Carlson’s artistic response to the destruction of Spirit Island draws on this ideology, critiquing that “Spirit Island is an example of decisions being made without thinking seven generations into the future” (“An Interview”).
Part of the process of recovering Indigenous presence and reestablishing environmental sustainability involves imagining a new future:
This ‘uncompromising hand’ [of industrialization] seems to be severed from the body, like a hand without reason: all action, no thought. We are seeing the ‘uncompromising hand’ of industrialization at work all over even to this day ("An Interview")
Calling more lakes by their original Dakota names is our future. Fighting fish that fling their bodies in our faces is our future ("An Interview")
The destruction of Spirit Island represents the physical and cultural erasure of the Dakota and other Indigenous peoples by colonial forces. But in recognizing this, Carlson is able to reinvent and transform past events through art. Recontextualizing the island in the present rather than the past allows Carlson to visually assert the Indigenous presence
By reimagining Spirit Island, Carlson insists that creating a better future means “learning from our past to protect the environment for future generations to enjoy” (“On The Uncompromising Hand”). In artistically recreating the island, she critiques industrial development and resists settler attempts at Indigenous erasure. Thus, Carlson calls for an end to perpetuations of settler mentalities by projecting a more sustainable future atop the industrialized river.