Cherokee/Muscogee (Creek), b. 1978
Muscogee (Creek) Hymn, 2019
Single-channel video with sound on continuous loop 3:30”

Collection of the artist

Elisa Harkins

In her work Muscogee (Creek) Hymn (2019), Elisa Harkins investigates the residue of colonialism on her ancestors and their resilience during the Trail of Tears, a series of forced relocations in the early to mid-1800s of Indigenous peoples from their homelands in the Southeast to territories west of the Mississippi. The work is a single-channel video featuring Harkins and collaborator Dannie Wesley in a woodland setting. The two figures walk through the woods in search of one another. As Harkins walks through the landscape, she begins tying cotton strips to tree branches and logs that lie in creek beds, creating markers, a trail, so that Wesley can find her. As the two search for one another, they sing “Espoketis Omes Kerreskos,” a Muscogee (Creek) hymn that was sung by the artist’s ancestors as they walked the Trail of Tears and is still sung in Muscogee churches today:

Espoketis omes kerreskos,
This may be the last time we do not know,
Mekusapvlke vpeyvnna
The Christians have gone on …
Pumvpvltake vpeyvnna
Our others have gone on …
Cvwantake vpeyvnna
My sisters have gone on …

BIO

Elisa Harkins is an artist and composer originally from Miami, Okla. Harkins received her B.A. from Columbia College Chicago and her MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. She has since continued her education at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. Her work is concerned with translation, language preservation, and Indigenous musicology. Harkins uses the Muscogee and Cherokee languages, electronic music, sculpture, and the human body as her tools. She has exhibited her work at The Broad Museum, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, documenta 14, the Hammer Museum, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami and the Vancouver Art Gallery. Harkins is currently a mentor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, a Tulsa Artist Fellow, and an enrolled member of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe.