kinaypikowiyâs - 2021.
Four 30.5-metre industrial debirs booms.
nēhiyawēwin title provided by Gerald McMaster.
Installation view: Time Holds All The Answers, Curated by Dr. Gerald McMaster
Remai Modern Museum, Saskatoon, SK.
Photos by Blaine Campbell, Courtesy Remai Modern Museum.

This work is composed of debris booms, used to catch and hold environmental contaminants such as garbage, oil and chemicals. The colours of the booms correspond to different types of threats—red (flammable), yellow (radioactive), blue (dangerous), and white (poisonous)—in the labelling system for hazardous materials. To indigenous peoples these are shared medicine colours that carry knowledge, purpose and meaning throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Suspended like hung meat, the booms represent a snake that has been chopped into four parts. Each part represents an area of the colonial map of the Western Hemisphere: South America, Central America, North America, and all of the surrounding islands. The title, kinaypikowiyâs, is a Plains Cree word, meaning snake meat. Divided by borders, Postcommodity assert that all people living in the Americas are riding on the back of this snake. Acknowledging this divided state, Postcommodity calls for border-crossing discourses led by indigenous peoples throughout the Americas about land, resources, and shared knowledge.