Mona Cliff
monacliff.com

When contemplating resilience, I chose to build off my current work, adding a tool which was very much used in the past. In my own ignorance I thought, as many do, how this tool is antiquated and not used—the hide scraper. I myself was caught up in antiquating my own people, natives have been using this technique and tools in continued care, for survival. My original motivation was to highlight the hide scraper as a relic to not be forgotten, a symbol of our resilience. 

Then I saw a young man's TikTok, he was showing his son scraping a Moses hide. I knew that our methods will continue, in many forms. The documentation of our culture and heritage is in the hands of our own people now, and not at the mercy of anthropologists’ eyes and opinions of who we are. 

My hide scraper is one for the future relatives, one for the next gen. Our methods carry on, even though the materials may change—that’s what I want to convey with this hide scraper. This hide scraper is a part of a larger work called Past/Presence/Future. It is a growing body of work that utilizes methods, materials and advances in technology that are passed on generationally. In making this work, I envision what the lives of my fifth-generation descendants would be like, as a result. 

The wood is reclaimed from a tornado field, an F4 tornado that came just three miles shy of our city in 2019. It was scary to be that close to the power of Mother Nature. In using this particular wood, I wanted to send a message: in our current climate we must proceed carefully. The tools may not change, the methods may not change, but the materials may, as a result of climate change. 

2019 is when this concept came to me, after I discovered computer motherboards in a scrap pile. I thought of my ancestors, the women, and how they used to skin the buffalo, take every part to use in their daily lives.  I thought of what we are leaving behind for future generations—scrap piles? What would be my great-great-grandchildren’s methods? How are we moving forward with future generations in mind? Envisioning Past/Presence/Future.