Greg Staats is Skarù:reˀ (Tuscarora) / Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) b. 1963, Ohsweken, Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. He is a Toronto-based artist whose ongoing Hodinöhsö:ni’ restorative aesthetic accumulates knowledge from the Skarù:reˀ(Tuscarora)/Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) language embodied in wampum, (quahog and whelk shells)— the medium of truth with the intention of recording the heart and good mind of the Hodinöhsö:ni’. From the Runners Continuum Exhibition:"This major solo exhibition is centred on Staats’ new work, Runners Continuum: a series of fourteen successive photographs. In this piece, he explores the identity and role of runners as they run between nations with the wampum string of notification of condolence and other matters. Staats imagines the runners’ footsteps within the language and living metaphors of the good mind. The runner then exists in the context of pre-colonial contact and the post-Great Law of Peace, while carrying a message of reciprocal and worldview when all words were together. Runners Continuum, along with additional new photographs, video, and sculptural works, silently speak to Staats’ position of being in a state of constant reflexive return with his own practice, personal narrative, Hodinöhsö:ni’ teachings, and place within creation. At the AGH, Staats’ works will be exhibited in the Southam and the Steiner Galleries."
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