SKY WOMAN WOMEN

4k video, sound, Total running time: 53 minutes

For access to the preview link please contact company@darafriedman.com

The “Sky Woman Women” project holds space for eighteen women storytellers from Mohawk, Seneca and Tuscarora tribal affiliations (enrolled, unenrolled, and not enrolled), telling and retelling the story of Sky Woman to each other. The conversation happens in the round, as the women discuss and unpack the teachings of the story on a personal level. The circular structure includes the viewer as part of the conversation. The telling of this Haudenosaunee creation story is an oral tradition primarily told by men. One aspect that is unique to this project is that our filmed conversation holds space for a multi-generational collective of women between the ages of 8 and 80.

This film actively works to remove the dam of knowledge to this powerful indigenous philosophy so that it can flow freely offering guidance. The tellings are informed and relevant, working to deal with anxiety that springs from moving into an uncertain future and needing to create-- as we all do. Throughout the course of the film, we become aware that learning and change at an individual and societal level begins with people coming together and talking, as happens in an oral tradition.

The Sky Woman creation story is about a pregnant woman falling through a hole in the sky, who, with courage and gratitude, creates a whole world from a handful of dirt. The story acts as a guide from a woman’s perspective in dealing with the natural world and maintaining balance within it, by acknowledging our kinship, inter-dependence and co-creation with the plants and animals that sustain us.

With assistance from 2024 Anonymous Was A Woman Environmental Art Grant in partnership with New York Foundation for the Arts

SKY WOMAN WOMEN

JILL CLAUSE

ANA STAHLMAN

LORINDA JOHN

EVELYN JOHN

ELEANOR JOHN

NIZHONI KENNEDY

FILEVE TLALOC

LEEORA WHITE

SHANNON SENECA

RUBY SENECA-BROCK

SAPPHIRE SENECA-BROCK

KORY SMITH

LATICIA MCNAUGHTON

KEAH GEORGE

ELIZABETH NANTICOKE

IAWENTAS NANTICOKE

TEKONWAKWENNI NANTICOKE

KARAKWAHAWI

THERESA BEAR FOX