Sky Hopinka. Fainting Spells

Sky Hopinka came to filmmaking through his interest in Indigenous languages and storytelling techniques. A member of the Ho-Chunk nation and a descendent of the Pechanga Band of Luiseño Mission Indians, Hopinka creates intricately constructed videos that blend personal narratives with documentation of contemporary Native life and abstract imagery—all reflecting on the power and limits of intercultural communication.

A meditation on family, tradition, healing, and landscape, Hopinka’s Fainting Spells (2018) explores a mythical narrative about Xąwįska, or Indian pipe plant, used medicinally by Ho-Chunk people to revive those who have fainted. In the film, texts about the plant and its role in Ho-Chunk traditions scroll over abstracted images of gatherings, familiar terrains, and natural phenomena, many evocative of historical avant-garde cinematic aesthetics. Executed mostly in Washington and Colorado, the film exemplifies Hopinka’s ongoing efforts to create what he calls “ethnopoetic” art focused on a creative engagement with living Indigenous cultures.