Here you are before the trees

Synopsis

“In a single day, how many really nonsignifying fields do we cross? Very few, sometimes none. Here I am, before the sea; it is true that it bears no message."–Roland Barthes, Mythologies. Here you are before the trees traverses Indigenous presence in the Hudson River Valley, Wisconsin, and the areas in-between. Presented in three channels, each screen focuses on different homelands and their complex relationships with history, landscape, power and institutional means of oppression.