EVERYTHING I SAY IS TRUE
Kite, aka Suzanne Kite, is an Oglala Lakota artist who works with computational media, audio, and performance. In her 2017 work Everything I Say Is True, Kite challenges the universalizing of Western concepts of truth through Oglala Lakota non-linear time. Kite shares that “In Lakota, past and present are much closer together,… For example, -ble means ‘I went/and I go’ and -mni kte- ‘I will go.’ If I think in Lakota, is there a difference between past and present?”* Her feminist techno-scientific work ruptures assumptions about the objectivity of scientific knowledge, by drawing out the equivalencies of knowledge making/sharing systems within differing cosmologies. Kite asks us to analyze how the knowledge system we may take as indisputable truth may instead be a mythological interpretation of shared material reality. In this, her work profoundly reframes approaches to healing ecosystems as always already politicized acts.
In this multi-media performance work, Kite constructs a complex narrative through the use of her own family’s ephemera and historical documents as well as through a new body of work in various mediums, including video, sound, electronic sensors and sculpture. This piece was commissioned by the Walter Phillips Gallery at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity and was curated by Jacqueline Bell.
*Westman, Nicole Kelly. “Concrete Constructs of Linearity.” Luma Quarterly, Issue 008, Volume Two | Spring 2017
Screen version of Everything I Say Is True. Kite, 2017.
Coin Trick, from Everything I Say Is True. Kite, 2017.
Sound documentation of Everything I Say Is True. Kite, 2017.
Video documentation of Kite's studio process.
Kite aka Suzanne Kite is an Oglala Lakota performance artist, visual artist, and composer. She has a BFA from CalArts in music composition, an MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School, and is a PhD student at Concordia University and Research Assistant for the Initiative for Indigenous Futures. Recently, Kite has been developing a body interface for movement performances, carbon fiber sculptures, immersive video & sound installations, as well as co-running the experimental electronic imprint, Unheard Records.
You can learn more about Kite's work on her Website, Vimeo, SoundCloud, and Instagram.