VIFF Live is honoured to co-present this unique and important work at the 2026 PuSh Festival.
Land // Memory // Future
Part live cinema, part ecological opera, askîwan ᐊᐢᑮᐊᐧᐣ conjures a cosmology of land, memory, and time. This operatic multimedia performance transforms a miniature film set — complete with cameras, mylar, mirrors, and bowls of water — into vast dreamlike mountainscapes that unfold in real time.
Through live video projection, electroacoustic sound, and baritone vocals sung in nehiyawewin (Plains Cree), creator and director Tyson Houseman (nêhiyaw) invites audiences into an Indigenous vision of deep, cyclical time: where rivers breathe, fire regenerates, and childhood memories ripple through vibrating water. Viola da gamba and electronics entwine ancient and digital frequencies as landscapes shift from winter ice to aurora skies. At once cinematic and ceremonial, askîwan ᐊᐢᑮᐊᐧᐣ reveals how land remembers — and how, even amid ecological crisis, the earth continues to sing through us.
Presented by
Jan 29 & 30
8:00 pm
Guest
Tyson Houseman
Treaty 6 Territory
Tyson Houseman is a nêhiyaw video artist, performer, and filmmaker from Paul First Nation. Tyson’s practice focuses on aspects of nêhiyaw ideologies and teachings — speaking to land-based notions of non-linear time and the interwoven relations between humans and their ecologies. He has exhibited at various galleries, screenings, and festivals worldwide. Most recently he participated in artist residencies at MacDowell, Wassaic Project, Vermont Studio Center, and Institute for Electronic Arts at Alfred University. Tyson is a recipient of the 2025 “Open Call” commission at The Shed in NYC, a 2025 Forge Project Fellow, a COUSIN Collective Cycle IV Fellow, and a 2025 MacDowell Fellow. Along with producing his own works, Tyson is a touring performer on various live cinema performances created by DJ Kid Koala. Tyson has an MFA in Fine Arts from School of Visual Arts in NYC and a BFA in Theatre Performance from Concordia University in Montreal.
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