by Marisa Jane Green
On August 1 at 1pm MT, the CDTC invites you to #StandStill with us as we collectively pause to center the CDT and Indigenous lands it runs through. Anyone + everyone is invited to participate in this moment of stillness on and peripheral to the CDT.
« ‘stand’ in the context of this project is meant metaphorically, to describe a sense of unity »
So what’s this project all about?
The driving force behind StandStill is an image I had of a trail in total stillness, with everyone on it and connected to it intentionally paused. I had the idea for this movement experiment somewhere on a ridgeline in Tennessee, while hiking the Appalachian Trail. Picture this: everyone stops where they are, wherever they are, for one specific minute of one specific day, and during this point in time, we are all connected. No matter where you are, you could potentially participate.
I think of long trails as places of constant motion, of hikers traveling, of the movement in the forests and on top of mountains and in the waters. I also feel that there isn’t enough acknowledgment given in the long trail community of the Indigenous origin and violent colonial history of these Native lands that we now collectively treasure and claim as our public lands. What if we took our collective minute to center these ideas? What if we reflected together on what it means to be on Native land, stolen land? What does is mean to resist Indigenous erasure in public lands? How does this intersect with ongoing conservation efforts? These are just a few questions I have. So I see this project as both an offering and a call to action – a piece of participatory art and a moment of awareness.
I’ve been exploring where movement and activism intersect through my work since 2014. It’s taken me— meaning my cameras and my body— from NYC to Standing Rock and the Mississippi Delta. The mobilization of bodies for a movement, and how this mobilization is shaped in space and time, has become an obsession of mine.
It is my hope that you’ll participate in #StandStill and utilize this hashtag for any reflections you might have!
Marisa Green is an artist living and working in the deep south and is CDTC’s Artist in Residence. Her passion is building new worlds with moving images.
