While this studio project did not include a formal design my drawings and mappings were an attempt to dissuade myself from any notion that native people exist in a space of studying their traditions, history, or art, but instead as current entities whose lives were and are impacted by colonization.

The state of maps and boundaries that we consider to be ‘normal’ came with real stories. I know that as a landscape designer I will always be in the conflict zone of ongoing, and in the-moment indigeneity, as well as historical wrongdoings of death and dispossession. There is no equilibrium in nature nor does it exist on paper or digital data. In order to live and design in the place I do, a critical study of the hundreds of years of occupation was in order. My intention was to feel and observe so that I could try to understand who I want to be a as a designer. This did not bring conclusions, but it did bring resolve…

A resolve that I want to be a part of re-directing the channelized and deep momentum behind the dominant American memory. A resolve to be critical of how I present my own authorship of design, and to always acknowledge that the act of mapping and drawing are inherently highly authored. To be a designer is to be in the contested and conflicted landscape.