Pathway 3: Food and Ecology

Winona LaDuke

Our third pathway through the Origins Festival is themed around food and ecology - and the start point for that just has to be Winona LaDuke's Lecture on Monday 15th June.  Winona is the founder of the Honour The Earth project, which she runs from the White Earth reservation in Minnesota.  She combines a deep understanding of her Native culture with an impassioned engagement in contemporary issues, that has led her twice to stand for the Vice-Presidency of the United States, running alongside Green candidate Ralph Nader.  Honour the Earth states:  "We are committed to the understanding that Indigenous peoples are key in the work to address climate change and energy justice -- from our teachings and wisdom of thousands of years living within our cultural practices, to our strategic position in terms of renewable energy and retaining agro-biodiversity in a time of climate change. Our work is in restoring these knowledge systems and practices, strengthening consciousness, and creating the durable energy and food economies for Native America. "  The rare opportunity to hear this inspirational speaker in London really is unmissable.  We are also screening a film about her life: Thunderbird Woman.

Another inspiring Native American woman is Chef Lois Ellen Frank, who joins us with Chef Walter Whitewater to create an amazing Native American Gourmet Lunch.  It promises to be totally delicious, way outside our usual London food experiences, and imbued with the traditional food knowledge and ecological beliefs of First Nations people.  After the lunch, Lois will be talking with Graham Harvey about Food and Spirituality.

Voladores de Papantla

Also ecological in inspiration is the spectacular ceremony of the Voladores de Papantla.  An ancient Totonac ritual, associated with regeneration and natural cycles, it is particularly appropriate that it is performed in London at the summer solstice.  Their ceremony at Horniman's Pleasance is followed by another Meso-American performance about regeneration: the Mayan Grupo Sotz'il present Oxlajuj B'aqtun.  At the 2012 winter solstice, the Mayan calendar moved into a new era: in this shamanic play, the meaning of this cosmic change is explored in terms of our relationship to the Earth, to the animals, and to our common humanity.

Oxlajuj B'aqtun

If all this leaves you in need of some personal re-balancing, why not try a little Ayahuasca, courtesy of José Navarro?  The Amazonian halluconegenic may be a bit tricky to find in London, but José's solo performance for an audience of one is about the closest you can get!  Book your slot for a five-minute encounter with this masterful piece of puppetry.  

The environment is central to indigenous Australian culture too.  The Tracks exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack gallery features some remarkable paintings, made in response to the spiritual idea of "Country"; while Charlie's Country, screening at Hackney Picturehouse, makes a powerful case for a re-connection to the land and to traditional ways of finding and preparing food - the mass-produced food of the white world is poisoning Charlie's people.

Uvanga

Two other films finish off this particular pathway: from opposite ends of the earth, they each deal with the relationship between indigenous people and the natural world.  From New Zealand, the classic Whale Rider sees a Māori girl form a powerful bond with the great sea mammal - and from the Canadian Arctic, Uvanga offers a rare glimpse into the life of the Inuit, and their close ties to land and sea.

Pathway 2: Politics and Protest

Oxlajuj B'aqtun

Origins has always been a political festival, and this year's programme particularly reflects the worldwide indigenous protest against continuing imperialism, economic colonisation, and the destruction of the environment.  Grupo Sotz'il, for example, are performing their great production Oxlajuj B'aqtun, which has been acclaimed across Latin America for its moving response to the genocide committed against the Mayan people of Guatemala, and especially the assassination in 2010 of the group's inspirational founder Lisandro Guarcax.  His words form the epigraph to their work: “We wish that all our efforts will be translated into the knowledge of the others”.

Winona LaDuke

Winona LaDuke, who gives this year's Origins Lecture, is probably the most important Native political leader in the United States.  Founder of the project Honour the Earth, Winona lives on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota, where she practises an environmentally balanced lifestyle, at the same time as leading the protest against the destruction of indigenous lands, which is a threat not only to indigenous people, but to the whole of humanity.  She has twice stood as the Green candidate for the Vice-Presidency of the United States.  On 15th June, she will speak at Rich Mix about the indigenous approach to ecology, politics and protest in the 21st century.  And, if you want to know more about her, there's a film about her life too, called Thunderbird Woman.  

There are plenty of other talks with a political edge - but the one we'd particularly mention is the Menzies Centre talk with Indigenous Australian writer and campaigner David Milroy.  David has been involved with Origins from its inception, and is always fascinating and entertaining at once when he deal with his passion for Aboriginal land rights and cultural survival.

Standstill

Our film programme is equally uncompromising in its approach to political questions.  Standstill, which opens the film festival on June 10th, find links between the long resistance of the Mohawk people to colonisation, and the current situation of the Palestinian people.  To view the Palestinians as the indigenous subjects of a colonial power throws a whole new light on the conflict there.

Benny Wenda and the Lani Singers

West Papua is another land where the indigenous people are fighting against aggressive colonialism today, and the Festival welcomes their exiled leader Benny Wenda - twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize - to the screening of The Road to Home, a documentary about his remarkable life, and to sing the songs of his native land at The Origins Concert.  Meeting Benny is an experience you will not forget.

Just Another Sámi

Closer to home, the Sámi people of the European Arctic are also engaged in a struggle for land, ecology and culture.   Norwegian company Ferske Scener's Just Another Sámi is a dramatic and musical howl of protest against oppression in lands surprisingly close to home.

Beautiful One Day

The Politics and Protest Pathway reaches through to the closing event of the Festival, brought to London from Australia's Torres Strait Islands by Ilbijerri Theatre Company.  Beautiful One Day is a protest against ongoing racism and the scandal of Aboriginal deaths in custody, starting from one particular death on Palm Island in 2004.  It is also a love letter to an environment and a way of living that somehow endure, in spite of everything.

After the Festival is over, the echoes of protest will remain.  Palpably so, in the form of Elliot Tupac's street art.  Elliott has re-defined mural painting in Latin America with his fusion of indigenous Andean art and the roar of the contemporary city.  Origins brings his work to London, leaving a lasting reminder of the Politics and Protest pathway.

Foreign Cinema

I've been at large in San Francisco - helped by the fact that the technical work on Xerxes has been much smoother and simpler than expected. Paul Pyant, the Lighting Designer, has been here too - and we've been trying out a different restaurant each night. Carissa is from San Francisco, so there have been some insider tips. Last night we were at a wonderful place called Foreign Cinema, which does indeed screen European films in its courtyard, in case you don't fancy chatting over the delicious food. This city is the food capital of the US, with a restaurant for every 28 inhabitants.

We got through our cue-to-cue by lunchtime today, so I was able to spend some time exploring. I went up to the San Francisco Art Institute, which is an art school but also happens to contain an original Diego Rivera mural - the first one I've ever seen in situ. It is totally incredible. As expected. The bonus was an exhibition of contemporary work, called East Meets West. Most of this is rather ordinary, but there is one stunning piece of work by an artist called Amie Siegel - called Black Moon. It's partly an hommage to Louis Malle, but it's also a fascinating use of film in the gallery setting, projected in such a way that you feel very much involved in the post-apocalyptic narrative, alone in a dark room with a screen that covers an entire wall.

On to the legendary City Lights bookstore - where I am able to buy a signed copy of Winona LaDuke's book All Our Relations, plus some other indigenous materials from the vast stock on display - and (of course) a copy of Howl. Well, you can't leave San Francisco without a copy of Howl, can you?