Sky Hopinka’s “Visions of an Island”

Visions of an Island is part of Sky Hopinka’s broader exploration of the ways that memory, the spoken word, and the environment form multilayered Indigenous identities. Here, he focuses on the Unangax̂, an Indigenous people who live on the Aleutian and Pribilof Islands off the west coast of Alaska. Filming on Saint Paul, one of the Pribilof Islands, Hopinka intertwines three elements: an Unangax̂ elder describing the island, students learning the Unangam Tunuu language, and scenes of a dreamlike setting. As the camera pans across rocky cliffs, rough waters, and weathered houses, we hear reflections from the Unangax̂ elder and discussion from students on incongruities between language and landscape. Through techniques of collage and superimposition, images of land, sea, and humans blur and merge.