November 8 – 5 December Dust to Dust
Carlos Agamez's work Dust to Dust documents his performance work of the same name. It references the biblical passage of life; from dust to dust that draws a poetic connection between the land and our passage across it.
He identifies as a migrant but is where he came from of any consequence? He is here now in this land of many migrants where the past falls from our shoes as we walk, dust to dust.
This show is Slot’s offering to NAIDOC Week. It is our observation of the indigenous idea that we can never own our land, it is that the land owns us. It is a singularly simple and profoundly alert concept that dismisses the sentimental nationalism carried here like dust on the shoes of successive waves of migration. And it’s an idea that Carlos reflects with a quote:
This we know – the Earth does not belong to man-
man belongs to the Earth. This we know-
whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.
- Chief Seattle The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell
It’s hard to argue with Carlos’s point as the world begrudgingly moves to constrain our climate changing carbon emissions. From dust to dust as we walk from here to there, the pleasure of that passage is all we ever own – ever achieve.
-Tony Twigg
