This essay analyzes Michif filmmaker Amanda Strong’s 2018 stop-motion film about urban syrup making, Biidaaban (The Dawn Comes) within the context of some scholars’ claim that it is nearly impossible to imagine a world outside of capitalism. Drawing on decolonial Indigenous political theory and feminist thought, the essay argues that Biidaaban illustrates the political possibilities of Indigenous slipstream, a subgenre of Indigenous science fiction characterized by nonlinear time, to bring about liberatory worlds in the face of forces that make the capitalist order appear natural. Theories of Indigenous aesthetics also highlight how embodied practices—including both syrup making and stop-motion animation—are part of an ongoing process of creation and remaking of the world. These perspectives point to the generative function of visual art, breaking down the boundary between representation and action. Following from these ideas, the essays shows how Biidaaban is an assertion of Indigenous sovereignty and a generative step in the process of world making.
Is a Non-Capitalist World Imaginable? Embodied Practices and Slipstream Potentials in Amanda Strong’s Biidaaban
Matthew Harrison Tedford is a doctoral student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, pursuing a PhD in Visual Studies with a designated emphasis in Feminist Studies. His research focuses on the intersection of ecology and contemporary visual art, film, and virtual reality, with a particular emphasis on multispecies relations. In 2021, Matthew was a recipient of a UC Santa Cruz Feminist Media Histories Initiative Fellowship. His art and film criticism has been published in Hyperallergic, Artsy, KQED, Bay Nature, Art Practical, SF Weekly, and elsewhere.
Matthew Harrison Tedford; Is a Non-Capitalist World Imaginable? Embodied Practices and Slipstream Potentials in Amanda Strong’s Biidaaban. Feminist Media Histories 1 January 2022; 8 (1): 46–71. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/fmh.2022.8.1.46
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University of California Press