Digital Constellations - Making Our Own Seat at the Table

Amanda Amour-Lynx, Samay Arcentales Cajas, Mel Compton, Nico Laliberte-Cozzens, Nishina Loft, Sheri Osden Nault, Thomas Robertson, Rihkee Strapp, Sydney Wreaks, and Emily Wright Audio - AKASoleil + Free Lynxii A celestial space subverts the colonial gaze, creating a hypersurreal landscape where Indigenous future imaginaries, dreams and stories can exist. Cultural connection is potent when we share meals, stories, and craft at the table together. This is where our knowledge transfer happens, this is where we "bead and bitch",where our truth-telling is sovereign and allowed to exist. "Having a seat at the table" is a metaphor around belongingness and inclusion. Queer and Indigenous bodies have historically been excluded from spaces where decisions are made concerning their rights and self-determination. The augmented reality-space acts in rebellion to assimilation, to normative and exclusionary spaces, unsettling the limitations imposed on queer, non-binary, trans and two spirit voices. The scene posits itself as a private sanctuary, outside of colonial and heteropatriarchal structures. Via finite state machine, the scene can be explored interactively: chairs, crafting supplies and fantastical oversized beads can be moved, dragged, lifted and thrown. The material context of beadwork and handmade baskets transform into cosmic beings. Reminding us of the animacy of celestial and ancestral stories held within our traditional ways of making.