Between the Waters

In Rez Dog, Rez Dirt, Demian DinéYazhi´ layers text and narration over footage of his grandparents’ land north of Ch´ínílį–Diné Bikéyah (Navajo Nation). In the voice-over, he describes returning to the reservation where he spent much of his childhood. Through the intimacy of his story and the video’s DIY aesthetic, his monologue expresses a deep emotional connection to the desert. Printed over the shaky, lo-fi footage is Joy Harjo’s poem “Returning from the Enemy,” which speaks to the profound relationship between home and land. While the simultaneity of the two texts introduces a sense of disconnection and rupture, for the artist the entwined stories are also a testament to the concept of survivance. More than survival, it is a way of life that actively sustains Indigenous forms of knowledge.