«Just a Soul Responding» is a four-channel film by Hudson based artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka. It starts with the classical motif of the road movie – driving through the landscapes of the United States. The poetic montage of filmed images, short texts by the artist and recorded music in the tradition of experimental film addresses the trauma of the inexorable loss of indigenous tradition and the spiritual significance of natural environs. In his film collages, the artist, himself a native American of the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin and a descendent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseno Indians, succeeds in subtly invoking time-honored traditional ways of life threatened with annihilation by the onslaught of modern civilization. 

Find out more in the interview with Sky Hopinka.

Various characters take shape gradually and insistently on the green screen in the exhibition space, but what we see goes much beyond classical representation. Several fields of research overlap in Wai-Kin Sin’s portraits, ranging from the spectres of femininity or masculinity to the diverse embodiments of the printed matter of art history and their respective staging. These video works enlist a diversity of metaphors to demonstrate the binary in the form of surreal narratives that transcend the normative processes of constructing identity, desire and objectification. A compelling blend of performance, moving image, cultural history and theatricality characterizes these intense productions.

Find out more in the interview with Wai-Kin Sin