Whitney Biennial 2024: Even Better Than the Real Thing

Film

Born 1986 in Yellowknife, Canada
Lives in Bowser, Canada

In the experimental short film Spirit Emulsion, the Inuit/Haitian/Taíno filmmaker, writer, and activist Siku Allooloo combines analog Super 8 film that was hand-developed with plant medicines and flowers from both the Northwest Territories (where Allooloo is from) and Coast Salish territories (where the film was made) with digital video to convey the enduring presence of her maternal Taíno culture. Assembling video footage of wildflowers, ocean scenes, and various archival materials and ephemera from Indígena: News from Indian America—a pioneering Indigenous newspaper founded by her late mother, Marie-Hélène Laraque (1948–2000) in the 1970s—the work portrays the bond with ancestral lands, cultures, and activism transcending cultural erasure and death. As the video alternates between flickering shades of brown and gray and vivid, colorful imagery, Allooloo’s narration can be heard in the background, complemented by a musical score from Jesse Zubot and vocals by Pura Fé. By re-presencing both archival and embodied legacies inherited from her mother and their Taíno people—who have actively resisted colonialism since 1492 and whose rights were championed by Laraque—Spirit Emulsion highlights the profound connections of Indigenous peoples to their land, the spirit world, and their ancestors, while underscoring their right to political and cultural self-determination.