Photo of an ocean with text in the sky that reads the partial phrase "aching and swelling, soothed by the ocean of a sea, whenever it was..."
Still from Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer, 2019
Sky Hopinka, Native American; member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and a descendant of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians, born 1984
Two-channel color video, edition 2 of 3, 13 min, 15 sec.
Purchased with funds from the Contemporary Associates, 2020, SC 2020.3.1

Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer by Sky Hopinka

February 9–July 21, 2024
Overview

Cloudless Blue Egress of Summer is a two-channel film by artist and filmmaker Sky Hopinka on view in SCMA’s Video and New Media Gallery.

As he does in much of his work, Hopinka experiments with visual and verbal languages, layering moving images, scrolling text, voiceovers and archival material to explore how these different elements intersect with processes of transmitting history. Set at Castillo de San Marcos, also called Fort Marion, in St. Augustine, Florida, the film grew out of Hopinka’s research at and around Fort Marion, including work with a collection of ledger drawings by Native Americans imprisoned at the fort, now held at the St. Augustine Historical Society. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Fort Marion staff sold ledger drawings like these to tourists in order to fund government-run boarding schools across the United States that sought to forcibly assimilate Indigenous people into whiteness.

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