Alan Michelson: Wolf Nation

In Wolf Nation, Alan Michelson transforms webcam footage of red wolves, a critically endangered indigenous species, into a meditation on displacement, the environment, and survival. The video links the eradication of the wolves from their extensive historic range with the colonial dispossession and removal of the Munsees, the Wolf Clan of the Lenape people, from their homelands, which included large portions of present-day New York and New Jersey. The video’s color and wide format refer to the Native tradition of wampum belts—woven sashes of purple and white beads carrying solemn messages used in diplomacy. Michelson’s projection assumes the form of a wampum belt for the digital age, with moving pixels standing in for beads. As a Turtle Clan member of the Mohawk Nation, Michelson affirms Indigenous environmental practice and its philosophy of kinship with the natural world.

The soundtrack is composed by White Mountain Apache composer and musician Laura Ortman.