A still of Joshua Dixon, a member of the Navajo Nation, appears in the film "The Illusion of Abundance," explaining the connection many Native people have with the land.Wearing a dark red shirt, Joshua Dixon sits in a tall grass field, singing a traditional Diné song. The song ends, and Dixon, a member of Utah’s Navajo Nation, looks to the camera and explains the deep connection many Native people have to the land.
“We realized to complete the picture, … we really have to include the Indigenous voice to go along with this narrative so that we get the holistic viewpoint,” she said. Ursula Perry dances near the Great Salt Lake, in a moment from the film "The Illusion of Abundance."In September 2022, Sofia Gorder, choreographer and Brolly Art’s director of program development, created a dance to go along with Cutubrus’ spoken narrative to bring awareness of the crisis at the lake and use of water in Utah through different art forms.
“There was just this adjacent kind of conversation that felt almost exactly the same,” she said, “like this cultural and biological development around women holding space for healing and all of the ecosystems … while it’s being exploited and taken from. “ have incredible language and knowledge systems that explain all of this,” she said. “And so we knew we wanted to shift the film to learn from Indigenous folks and their voice.”Gorder reached out to Jessica Wiarda, a Hopi artist and fashion designer, to work as a liaison with filmmakers throughout the process. Wiarda said she then began connecting with and inviting other Indigenous people to share their knowledge and participate in the film.
Wiarda said another challenge was a disconnect of cultural ideas. Non-Indigenous people, she said, seem to look at the lake as something that needs saving because of what it provides to the environment and the state’s residents. McDonald said filmmakers were committed to building relationships with the Indigenous people sharing their knowledge and voices for the film. They didn’t want to unintentionally disregard cultural beliefs but create a space where knowledge could be shared with the purpose of educating, she said. Those perspectives, she said, helped them learn and grow.
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