the intention of this project is to create a living artifact of knowledge transmission between
myself and my Até (father), Travis. because I did not grow up on my ancestral homelands,
storytelling is how my Até ensured that my younger brother and I were raised with our
Indigenous knowledge and culture, despite the physical distance between us and our community
and having a blended Dakota/Lakota/white family.
my Até and I have engaged in a practice of storytelling and reflective writing for over a decade,
doing so more frequently in the past five years as I have moved around and through the world. it
is the lifeline of our relationship, a mechanism of breaking and healing the cyclical trauma which
has been embodied for generations in our family as a result of residential schooling and other
genocidal acts against our people. it has helped me better understand myself as a queer two-spirit
person, led me to undertake new phases of life that I never imagined as possible, and guided us
into deeper conversations, the difficulty of which could only be supported by this means of
communication.
ultimately, storytelling has been our way of knowing for the entirety of my life — this is how I
know my Até, myself, and all the relationships I partake in.
I invite you to join us in this process by listening to my Até share stories with me, and reading
my written responses to him.
-gillian