Billboard: Verbal Description: Raven Chacon’s Silent Choir

Narrator: Raven Chacon’s Silent Choir (Standing Rock), 2017–22, is a billboard measuring 17 × 29 feet. (5.2 × 8.8 m).

Raven Chacon: This is an image of a couple hundred water protectors on the Backwater Bridge.

Narrator: This is a photograph by artist Raven Chacon showing water protectors just outside of Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota. This bridge connects the reservation to Bismarck North Dakota which is off the reservation. Using some very large vehicles, state police and the Dakota Pipeline—or DAPL—security have barricaded this bridge. 

Raven Chacon: In the foreground, you see a couple hundred water protectors confronting the DAPL security further on the bridge. You also see a few other objects: particularly a giant wind sock that an artist has made that says “mni wiconi,” which means “water is life.” And this photo was taken, I believe, at about 4 o’ clock in the afternoon in November on Thanksgiving weekend, the last hours of daylight.