Dreaming as Lifeway: Analogue Apparitions and Earthly Protagonists

Edwards, Kathleen. DREAMING AS LIFEWAY: Analogue Apparitions and Earthly Protagonists. Master of Fine Arts, April, 2023, Emily Carr University of Art + Design, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Shé:kon, sewakwé:kon. KJ ní’i. I am a Kanien’kehá:ka and mixed settler filmmaker, writer and video editor. My maternal family are wolf clan, Goodleafs, from Kahnawá:ke, Québec; and my paternal family is Edwards from Longueuil, Québec. My parents met in Montréal and both became educators. They traveled around the north teaching, eventually deciding to stay awhile in Treaty 6 Territory, Edmonton, Alberta, where I was born and raised. Skennen’kó:wa ken? This translates to: “Do you carry the Great Peace with you?” This is the Mohawk way of asking how someone is. And it is emblematic of the relational beauty of my maternal language, Kanien’kéha. An everyday greeting that is meaningful and rooted in one’s experience of the world through the spiritual. As I get older and continue to redefine my value system and further develop my practice, I aim to bring this kind of relational approach into my filmmaking process. By working with analogue film and engaging with different creative cohorts, I have realized that my work thrives because of the generosity of others and through knowledge exchange. My analogue practice is possible because of those who have mentored me and inspired me. My research looks to dreams as a lifeway, as a means to communicate with ancestors and to work creatively to tell stories, along with accessing memory and ideating. I reflect on the unpredictability of analogue workflows through eco processing 16mm film, looking to the medium as that of a collaborator. I inquire about the ways in which my particular neurodivergence and training might be both challenged and enriched through material processes, returning to an attentiveness of mind and body through the work and through these collaborations. Niá:wen, thank you for taking the time to engage with this writing.