MY NAME MEANS FUTURE

Andrea Bowers, My Name Means Future, 2020.

Andrea Bowers, multidisciplinary visual artist and 2020 Summit speaker, tries to find hope within eco-grief by documenting an important youth activist in her film My Name Means Future (2020). The film is centred around Tokata Iron Eyes, a member of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe who has been involved with the climate justice movement to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. In the Lakota language, “Tokata” means “Future”, a concept that the sixteen-year old reflects on throughout the film, providing her philosophy on nature in relation to the current climate emergency. Andrea produced the film over four days with a group of artists and activists, recording video interviews and landscape drone shots of Tokata discussing the histories, personal and political issues of the sacred indigenous sites of North and South Dakota, United States.

Click here to watch Andrea’s 2020 Summit Talk. 

Read about Tokata's meeting with climate activist Greta Thunberg, discussing the need for solidarity and Indigenous wisdom as we confront the climate crisis here.