I Build a Qayaq

New Video at my youtube site here

or in my list of time based art on the right.

This video is a comment on the white euro-american adaption and subsequent eradication of the Native Alaskan way of life.  

The Yupik speaking narrators tell the stories of the importance of and building of a beautiful, one of a kind qayaq.  In the Yupik Eskimo culture of Western Alaska, this is the work of an artist/craftsman.  This qayaq is almost a sacred object as it is necessary for survival in the Bering Sea coast.  It is a mode of transportation, of food gathering and is symbolic of the Yupik culture.

This idea is contrasted with  the sportfisherman's "building" of the store bought, mass-produced inflatable kayak that was carried to a river to float and look for trout, which the fisherman will not even eat.   The anglo voice attempts to imitate the yupik words for beautiful qayaq, fish or food, great hunter and provider, thank you and goodbye, but his attempts are as elegant as his imitation kayak.  He goes to the wilderness to find experiences which he feels are real and genuine, to commune with nature and leave his city troubles behind, but he brings his city gear and city mindset with him.   

The fading of the kayak builder and the fisherman can be read as either a white man fading in his reality of the wilderness, or possible as helping along the fading of the indigenous subsistence based lifestyle.

This video attempts to contrast the similarities and differences of these two cultures in terms of language, attitude towards the land, subsistence lifestyle and recreational lifestyle.  It also pokes a little fun at catch and release trout fishing.

Thanks to the Anchorage Museum of History and Art for the exhibit Yuungnaqpiallerput (The Way We Genuinely Live): Masterworks of Yupik Science and Survival.  Also thanks to Frank Andrew and Neva Rivers, they were the male and female Yupik Speakers.   Also thanks to Dan Lung as the fisherman in red.