Retrospective Sky Hopinka

A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and a descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, Sky Hopinka has been developing a multidisciplinary artistic practice for the past decade. As a musician, poet, filmmaker, and visual artist, he explores these art forms’ many possibilities through a personal approach. The cinematic works featured in this retrospective carry significant poetic and political weight. They offer rich reflections on language – the embodiment of culture and the means through which it is transmitted – as well as on the land and its colonial dispossession.

As an experimental filmmaker, Sky Hopinka explores both analogue and digital media, and often works with archival footage. His bold aesthetics and narrative choices navigate a tension between reality and abstraction, and skillfully invoke a sense of memory that’s both personal and shared. His use of music, a recurring element in his films, also manages to express a sentiment or statement that might otherwise remain buried in the space between images and words. His works’ poetic titles cleverly steer our reading of them, either underscoring the themes being addressed or conveying their underlying tone and atmosphere.

This retrospective is co-presented by VISIONS, a monthly screening series of art films and moving images.

For all the details regarding the installation, click here.

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

With an inspired artistic vision, this feature film spoken mainly in Chinuk Wawa follows the thoughts and wanderings of Sweetwater Sahme and Jordan Mercier.

MAɬNI – TOWARDS THE OCEAN, TOWARDS THE SHORE

Sky Hopinka
2020
United States
s.t. English
80 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

In a consciously fragmentary film, Cleo Keahna and Terry Running Wild share their perspectives on the resistance movement at Standing Rock.

DISLOCATION BLUES

Sky Hopinka
2017
United States
17 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

Through this experimental short film and densely wrought sensory experience, we are exposed to a myth imagined for Xawiska, a plant used by the Ho-Chunk to recover from a fainting spell.

FAINTING SPELLS

Sky Hopinka
2018
United States
11 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

A meditation on death and reincarnation, this visually and sonically rich film stands as a compelling tribute to Indigenous poet Diane Burns.

I'LL REMEMBER YOU AS YOU WERE NOT AS WHAT YOU'LL BECOME

Sky Hopinka
2016
United States
13 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

On the winding road of a father-son relationship, this personal short weaves a timeless dialogue between the two, narrowing the distance separating them.

JÁAJI APPROX.

Sky Hopinka
2015
United States
8 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

Perspectives, images, music, poetry, and personal stories are layered and intertwined in a complex reflection on traditions and possible futures.

JUST A SOUL RESPONDING

Sky Hopinka
2023
United States
17 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

In this touching intergenerational story, the filmmaker’s great-grandmother giving a language lesson to his grandmother in 1972 is a starting point that sparks reflection around knowledge transmission.

KICKING THE CLOUDS

Sky Hopinka
2021
United States
16 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

Inspired by Hollis Frampton’s experimental work Nostalgia, this film plays with notions of sharing traditions and knowledge, while an overhead projector displays fragmented landscapes.

LORE

Sky Hopinka
2019
United States
11 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

Using archival footage of the Indigenous-led occupation of Alcatraz, Sunflower Siege Engine reminds us that the battle for sovereignty is ongoing.

SUNFLOWER SIEGE ENGINE

Sky Hopinka
2022
United States
13 min

Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

The tension of colonial America is conveyed through the juxtaposition of moving images, a reflection on identity and belonging, and a poem by Walt Whitman.

WHEN YOU'RE LOST IN THE RAIN

Sky Hopinka
2018
United States
6 min

November 22nd to 25th, 2023 Sky Hopinka: Redefining potential territories

Sky Hopinka Installation : The Island Weights

This two-channel film by artist Sky Hopinka is based on the tale of the four water spirits known as Island Weights. In the creation story of Ho-Chunk,...

Sky Hopinka: Redefining Potential Territories