Knowledge of Wounds

Billy-Ray Belcourt (Driftpile Cree), Demian DinéYazhi’ (Diné, Naasht’ézhí Tábąąhá and Tódích’íí’nii clans), Ellen van Neerven (Mununjali Yugambeh), Jazz Money (Wiradjuri), Alison Whittaker (Gomeroi), Hannah Donnelly (Wiradjuri), Manu Tzoc (Maya K’Iche’)

Organized by S.J Norman (Wiradjuri) and Joseph M. Pierce (Cherokee Nation Citizen) Knowledge of Wounds is an autonomous gathering space, a ceremony, a fire, a calling to vibrate in good relations across Indigenous time and space. The third iteration of KoW offers a mid-winter space of generative respite, reflection and deep listening amidst the ongoing reverberations of collective rupture.

Continuing their mission as the stewards of this vessel of Indigequeer knowledge exchange, Norman and Pierce have worked with composer Chloe Alexandra Thompson (Beaver Lake Cree), audio-visual artist DB Amorin (Pacific Islander) and a line-up of esteemed First Nations poets to create a hypnotic sonic installation, an audiovisual loop which entwines the voices of Indigenous queer and two-spirit poets from four continents. Centering the Wiradjuri principle of Yindyamarra- a word meaning to move with slowness, gentleness and respect – this offering from Knowledge of Wounds honors the Indigenous body at rest. Conversant with the established currents of Black thought which name rest as an active praxis of defiance in a culture of extraction, the artists of KoW 2023 invites a consideration of rest-as-refusal within an Indigenous framework. What does it mean to offer our bodies to stillness? To move with seasonal cycles of withdrawal? To pause and listen deeply to the voices and vibrations of Land, as we navigate the sacred thresholds between the making, unmaking, and re-making of worlds?