In Life: A Natural History of the First Four Billion Years of Life on Earth, Richard Fortey wrote:
The Hadzabe of Tanzania in East Africa are one of the last remaining tribes of hunter-gatherers in the world. Their numbers are now fewer than 1,500 and are threatened due to encroachment of neighboring pastoralists and agriculturalists as well as a misunderstanding and discrimination by the outside world. Genetic testing indicates they may represent one of the primary roots of the human family tree, more than 100,000 years old.
Since connecting with the Hadza, I’ve been drawn to the connection between sustainability and indigenous wisdom - they are, in fact, inseparable; my wish is to evoke a deep questioning of complacency, especially society's universal lack of integrity within this connection. I hope to educate and visually engage viewers with a clear narrative, to explore nature’s operating systems, and to reawaken our cellular memory of our relationship with the wild.
From mankind's beginnings, there has always been a genetic algorithm of self-assembly that creates alliances - a neural network, like that of an immune system response - which can eradicate corruptive systems that, currently, are destroying life. As Janine Beynus reminds us “life creates systems that are conducive to life.”
Such awareness has lead me to create Indigene, a web-based platform which will contain photography essays, short films, and writings. The platform will illustrate the inextricable link between sustainability and natural capitalism, and the need for its integration. It is modernity’s adoption of a responsible ecological framework that can lead to interdependence and more appropriate models of change.
Indigene, by way of artists, activists, and visionaries, will provide a visual link and outreach to portray the thread of creative alliances and coming together with a unifying purpose - a grassroots uprising in an effort to bring an awareness to political corruption, ecological destruction, and indigenous marginalization.
Special thanks to Ethan Kinsey for the introduction to the Hadza. For more information on activism, please visit The Dorobo Fund for Tanzania.
