Dead River is a collaboration between Postcommodity and local American Indian heavy metal band Existence AD. The work responds to Steele Indian School Park, which is intended to pay homage to the Phoenix Indian School (operated from 1891 to 1990) and the area’s American Indian history. However, the park and its central design element, The Circle of Life, memorializes the cultural chauvinism of the region’s institutions, as well as the paternalistic and assimilationist policies of the federal government. Postcommodity worked with Existence AD to develop a song that incorporates the text from The Circle of Life, attributed as being the “Thoughts of an Ancient Indian Spirit.” The video of Existence AD performing this song is projected on a wall (12 ft. x 9 ft.) adjacent to the VIP lounge (22 ft. x 22 ft.) created for the band, their guests and select gallery visitors they allow into the space, which is partionioned from the rest of the exhibition space with stantions. The video and living installation provide an intervention of cultural self-determination that re-contextualizes and decolonizes the institutional narrative of Steele Indian School Park. The work subverts Western notions of instiutional power, legitimacy, and heirarchies of interaction within a public space.
Dead River
Video and living installation.
Music written and performed by Existence AD. 2009
POSTCOMMODITY