20 Years For What?

Sven Haakanson, Kodiak

copper plate and wire, red glass beads, coins from USA, Egypt, Germany, England and Russia
$1,200.00

“While art can be considered art for art sake this piece was created out of disillusionment with the decision of the Supreme Court in 2008.  I cold hammered this piece of copper sheet into a half mask with the other half cut into 20 sharp points for 20 years of waiting. The coins represent the different world powers that are controlled by oil companies.  The bottom coin represents what was given to Alaska for what the Oil company Exxon has taken.”

Our waters are
poisoned for life and
only death awaits us
to forget your sins
   of greed.

The money was not the point
   but that is what
       YOU
   turned it into.

Without care you drug
us through black death
leaving our waters void
of souls.

May the earth return
your actions tenfold
for every year you
raped our land,
our lives -slowly apart.

This is to your legacy exxon
-tiger of rape.

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Sven Haakanson has been teaching, learning and sharing traditional Alutiiq art for the past decade. A 2007 MacArthur Foundation Fellow, Haakanson is a native Alutiiq trained with a Ph.D. in anthropology, he is straddling worlds in an effort to preserve and give contemporary meaning to Native history and local legends, rituals, and customs.  The Alutiiq Museum, which he directs, is an archaeological archive and anthropological repository of cultural artifacts of the Kodiak archipelago.