In the ongoing multimedia series Waabanishimo: She Dances Till Daylight, Eve-Lauryn LaFountain creates ghostly images using long exposures to burn the pathway of ceremonies and celestial bodies into the film frame. This series investigates urban indigeneity, ceremony, tradition, landscape, spirits, light, and photographic mediums. LaFountain’s filmic sensibilities provide cinematic meditations on Los Angeles neighborhoods, and speak to a sense of place from her multicultural indigenous heritage.
The artist uses personal rituals to ask for strength and guidance from the ancestors who came before her so that the artist can be a good ancestor to those who will come after. In LaFountain’s own words: “Using meditation, dance and time-lapse cinematography, ‘Miigaazh (Fight)’ is an invocation of the ancestors, a meditation on resistance. In this new interpretation of a film and sound installation I explore the layering and passage of time, and the traces that celestial and corporeal bodies leave in their wake. These vignettes were originally shot on 16mm film, then transferred to digital and made into NFTs, blurring the lines between the analog and the ethereal. The sound was composed by Jon Almaraz. The titles are in Ojibwe, my tribe’s traditional language, with English translations.”