Transformation through Repetition: Walking, Listening and Drawing on Tlicho Lands

Abstract

As part of my PhD practice-based research on Tlicho lands (a self-governed Indigenous region in Canada's Northwest Territories), drawing is being used to embody intangible cultural heritage (which includes activities such as oral history and the social practice of walking). Recent work to emerge from this research consists of two drawings created by Tlicho elders, and an animated film made of 900 graphite drawings referencing regional oral history. The process of rendering these drawings embodied experiences on the land that are repetitive, albeit transformative, such as walking or listening to multiple versions of a single story. The entanglement of continually moving lines, evident through the animation, provides a counter-narrative to colonial interpretations of the land – particularly narratives constructed through Cartesian coordinate systems (on which computer graphics and the geometry of built environments are based). This article will describe the production of this film, while also inquiring into how line-making provides a trace of memory, rhythmic movement and epistemology.