19th January 2021 Online

In preparation for the different style of Festival necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, Border Crossings met with a group of Indigenous people living in the UK at the start of 2021, to explore the potential of a slower, longer and more localised ORIGINS.

LeAndra Nephin (Omaha):

How can we engage the younger generation? They are the future: we are the future ancestors. That's a huge responsibility, an important responsibility. So what kind of support structures and frameworks can we put in place to educate around that? Maybe you can engage with a few schools so that they can go out into the forest, find local plants, identify and establish that kind of kinship relationship with nature, with our animal relatives, with our plant relatives and even looking at decolonising the concept of time and space. My people don't celebrate New Year until the first thunders, which happens in the spring, whereas the Gregorian calendar is basically made based on January 1. Learning about ways that they can get in touch with their own history, their own ancestry, teaching a responsibility for Mother Earth.

Alexandra P. Alberda (Pueblo):

I think this idea of well-being and slowness - especially with the pandemic when people are in smaller locationswell-being is a real need. So much of that is tied to people having no access to green spaces, and this idea of always being online. Some of the actions that lead into climate change, like fast fashion - when the only thing we have is the technology that we use. Amazon made billions during the pandemic because people are buying more and more. Some of that is because people didn't have safe or normal access to things they needed, but some of it was a real want to have connections or to fill that space. So it may be climate change and well-being in the locality and slowness is a needed focus… and ways we can find Indigenous craft or Indigenous art bringing wellness strategies that we can then tie to environmental actions and the idea of well-being. How can we ‘get bored’ in a healthy way? How can we have a time where we don't have ‘the device’? What kind of Indigenous knowledge from across the world can help us? How we started this meeting, with a blessing by Kurikindi, was beautiful. At one point I opened my eyes and everyone else’s eyes were closed, looking down in just a peaceful moment. How can we bring that energy?