SKY HOPINKA’S new book perfidia moves within the textured landscape of memory, both personal and collective, to address the founding colonial violence of the united states and its lasting impact. In a series of cantos, the book-length poem surfaces a first-person narrative amidst the stream of history and its accounting through the voices of ancestors and kin. Shifting registers between the embodied and the spiritual, Perfidia's subjective syntax destabilizes entrenched colonial perspectives and concomitant descriptions of land, sky, sea, myth, place, and personhood.
perfidia sits at the center of HOPINKA’S most recent body of filmic work, which draws from the poem's sixteen cantos and its previous iterations. these filmic works include the short film lore (2019), the 2-channel video installation cloudless blue egress of summer (2019), the feature-length film maɬni - towards the ocean, towards the shore (2020), and the photo series the land describes itself (2019).
an excerpt from the book is published here alongside photographs from HOPINKA’S series breathings (2020) and the land describes itself (2019), and a conversation between HOPINKA and editor JULIE NIEMI.
this program is organized with wendy’s subway, a nonprofit arts and literary organization in brooklyn, ny, which co-published perfidia with the center for curatorial studies at bard college in october 2020, on the occasion of HOPINKA’S solo exhibition centers of somewhere at the ccs bard galleries, on view through february 14, 2021.
perfidia sits at the center of HOPINKA’S most recent body of filmic work, which draws from the poem's sixteen cantos and its previous iterations. these filmic works include the short film lore (2019), the 2-channel video installation cloudless blue egress of summer (2019), the feature-length film maɬni - towards the ocean, towards the shore (2020), and the photo series the land describes itself (2019).
an excerpt from the book is published here alongside photographs from HOPINKA’S series breathings (2020) and the land describes itself (2019), and a conversation between HOPINKA and editor JULIE NIEMI.
this program is organized with wendy’s subway, a nonprofit arts and literary organization in brooklyn, ny, which co-published perfidia with the center for curatorial studies at bard college in october 2020, on the occasion of HOPINKA’S solo exhibition centers of somewhere at the ccs bard galleries, on view through february 14, 2021.
O! Being here right now, not thinking of yesterday or the day before. But a long time ago last night aunty mentioned today and the rain falling and streaking against the upstairs window as Stacey and I looked down at the birch waiting to be climbed. This isn't the outside, and being here then felt more comfortable, in slicks and hoods, in boots and in our youth.
2020, Inkjet print, etching
They don't care about us and laugh when we turn on each other. I promised myself, no memories, no similes, still, I am deeply troubled at heart.
2020, Inkjet print, etching
Teją́. The Sea. It's neither our name for the great lakes or lesser lakes. It's the sea, and we said we were from the north and from the salt. It's too much right now. Too much like learning that my father performed the Breathings his entire life. I have recordings of him, and I heard them when I was little, and I said them myself after his death.
2020, Inkjet print, etching
This is you describing what I saw
2019, Inkjet print, etching
The light was blue and so were you
2019, Inkjet print, etching
The outside being here right now
2019, Inkjet print, etching
This is the by and by
2019, Inkjet print, etching
2019, Inkjet print, etching