Sky Hopinka says his work “is about wandering through ideas of language, identity, culture, history and the present without necessarily a clear idea of where to go or how to get there.”

Sky is passionate about where he comes from. By dismantling outdated forms of native storytelling, Sky introduces new styles in understanding native experience and narrative. Sky discusses his work through reflection on life, native culture, philosophy, and psychological manifestations through his art.

“Hopinka's work deals with personal interpretations of homeland and landscape; the correlation between language and culture in relation to home and land. Hopinka has said: “Deconstructing language [through cinema] is a way for me to be free from the dogma of traditional storytelling and then, from there, to explore or propose more of what Indigenous cinema has the possibility to look like.” - Wikipedia

“A member of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin, Hopinka has described his work as “ethnopoetic,” a term that encompasses several imperatives—among them, the mission to reclaim the ethnographic gaze that has dominated the representation of indigenous cultures and to bring the indirection of poetry to an exploration of Native identity both past and present. 

Exploring key and contested sites of recent and--and now distant history, Hopinka’s moving-image work, whether single-channel or installation, asks us to consider these landscapes as embodied memories, still not recorded, as mythical places, whose resonant beauty and power still have much to teach those who listen and watch attentively. Hopinka's films are keenly tuned to language, as you will see in the five works presented tonight, whether in the form of oral histories of family or of struggle and resistance, or poetic and incantatory texts. Language itself, imperiled and ephemeral, and often threatened with extinction, is itself a form of resistance in Hopinka's work.” - An Evening with Sky, Harvard

“It’s steeped in Native American history but rejects the idea that history is confined to the past.”  - New York Times 

“Deconstructing language [through cinema] is a way for me to be free from the dogma of traditional storytelling and then, from there, to explore or propose more of what Indigenous cinema has the possibility to look like.” - Filmmaker Mag

Learn
Standing Rock and Dakota Pipeline Movement: Native knowledge 360

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To support Indigenous Artists: First People Fund

Standing Rock and Dakota Pipeline Movement: Native knowledge 360

Curated engagement made possible by our partner, +Media Solutions, Inc.  https://www.plusmedia.solutions

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Since 1985, the International Center of Photography has recognized outstanding achievements in photography with its prestigious Infinity Awards. The awards ceremony is also ICP’s primary fundraising benefit, with its revenues assisting the center's various programs.

Harbers Studios commissioned MediaStorm, on behalf of ICP, to create a short film about each of the recipients to screen at the awards ceremony and to display online. The films pay tribute to the contributions of each artist to the craft and field of photography and demonstrate ICP's commitment to them.