Kill the Black Snake

More protest art in Portland. Here's their statement:

On Wednesday, March 10th, Elizabeth Harris and Aimee Sitarz installed hundreds of black ceramic forms in the shape of a snake across the Salmon Springs Fountain pointing towards the river. 

Their installation refers to an ancient Lakota prophecy about a black snake that would slither across the land, desecrating sacred sites and poisoning the water before destroying the Earth.

For many Indigenous people that snake has a name: the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The artists stand in solidarity with the land and water defenders in their fight against oil pipelines. 

The work is also a performance piece and will be left in place. The “killing of the black snake” will happen over the time it remains, as people interact with it, disturb, break or take pieces away with them. Thus all who help to dismantle the snake are helping to stop the pipeline and its destruction. 

The ceramic forms were hand thrown and glazed by Elizabeth Harris, a Portland-based artist who first used them to represent the oil spill following the explosion and sinking of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon in 2010.

Elizabeth hand-threw and glazed each of the vessels in the installation. She built over 3000 forms in a year and two months. This installation included 600 of those forms. The artist's website tells a bit more about her work. Aimee came up with the idea of constructing a Black Snake for a rally led by Native American people, and she immediately thought of Liz and her forms. They worked out the details together and then created the display today. Having had my two vaccines, I felt safe to go photograph the installation, wearing a mask and keeping safe distance outside. I left before the rally, but I hear there was drumming and dancing around the snake. The theme of the rally was "Water Is Life, Rivers Are Sacred."