I Shall Shed Ash upon the Michigan Carbon Works Pyre.

The work addresses ruthless extermination of American Bison/Buffalo by colonisers, especially in 1800s, and its tight connection to extermination and forcing into reservations of the Native American people. Numbers in the piece are geographical coordinates of just some of the Native American/Indian massacres in North America since early 1500s.

Nowadays we attempt being aware and vocal about injustices going on in the world, trying to amplify the voices of those hurt and oppressed. Which we must do. However, American media is selective, and oftentimes the voices amplified are only those in the spotlight. In the meantime colonisation, suffocation, and slow genocide of Native American people never stopped in the US. And it is mind-numbing how immune we seem to have become to this fact.

The title of the piece alludes to the well known 19th century photograph, in which two men from the Michigan Carbon Works refinery can be seen posing on a mountain of thousands and thousands of bison skulls. Bison is a significant being in my personal life. It is my power animal in my shamanic practice, and he is the one tying my homeland, the land of my birth, with the land I live on now. On the coat of arms of Moldova there is an aurochs head, aurochs being a predecessor of European Bison that still roams in the Southern Carpathians. Aurochs/Bison is an important part of Romanian culture and folklore. Of Moldovan culture and folklore, that survived despite Russian/Soviet invasion, colonisation, and numerous attempts of russification and mutilation of Moldovan Culture that has been torn off its Romanian core. My homeland is still under threat of re-occupation, however, it has regained its sovereignty and authenticity. Yet here, in the land my nomadic life has anchored me to, I cannot help but feeling the silence, where Native American voices should be heard.

As an immigrant, I deem it a duty to respect the land that harboured me and the people, whose land it truly is. And I deem it a duty as an artist and as a citizen to stand up to injustice and resist oppression in any way possible.