Sky Hopinka
Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians) is a filmmaker, video artist, and photographer developing new forms of cinema centred around personal positions on Indigenous homeland, language(s), culture and landscape. He has screened at festivals including Sundance, Toronto IFF, Courtisane, Punto de Vista, and New York Film Festival. Exhibitions include Whitney Biennial (2017), FRONT Triennial (2018) and Prospect.5 (2021). He has been guest curator at Whitney Biennial (2019) and participated in Cosmopolis #2 at Centre Pompidou. Solo exhibitions include the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College (2020) and LUMA (2022). Most recently, he received the 2022 Infinity Award in Art from the International Center of Photography, and is a 2022 MacArther Fellow.
The first of two screening programmes animating the work of Basma al-Sharif, BFMAF24 Filmmaker in Focus.
Born stateless and of Palestinian heritage, her work explores cyclical political histories and conflicts. In films and installations that move backward and forward in history, between place and non-place, she confronts the legacy of colonialism through satirical, immersive, and lyrical works.
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Filmmaker Sky Hopinka presents a screening of his short films in conversation with Nicole Yip, Director of LUX Scotland. Based in Milwaukee, Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk/Pechanga) focuses on the interconnections between his indigenous homeland, language, landscapes, and identity. Anchored by both surreal perspectives and grounded realities, Hopinka’s sublime films create maps of dreams and memories, pushing against cultural and personal boundaries, creating meaning where none had existed before.
Hopinka will read from his debut publication Around the Edge of Encircling Lake (2018) and the screening will include:
Kunįkága Remembers Red Banks, Kunįkága Remembers the Welcome Song, 2014, US, 9 mins
Jáaji Approx, 2015, US, 15 mins
I’ll Remember You as You Were, Not as What You’ll Become, 2016, US, 12 mins
Dislocation Blues, 2017, US, 17 mins
Fainting Spells, 2018, US, 12 mins
Special thanks to Ruth Hodgins, Walker Art Center
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Between the dizzying hallucinatory landscapes and circular images of a lens or porthole, Hopinka takes us to a world of dreams, spirits and myths, revealing the story of Xąwįska, the Indian Pipe Plant used by the Ho-Chunk to revive those who have fainted. With abstracted and inverted images Hopinka moves from an editing station into the landscape, illuminating the sense of losing oneself, of fear and renewal. —Ruth Hodgins
