Paviinokre
“We Flow/Fluidity”
Jess Gudiel
Paviinokre (Fluidity / We Flow) Tongva Stories, Songs, and Shadow Art
This video-recorded work was created by Los Angeles artists, Tina Calderon, Tongva Culture Bearer, Storyteller and Singer, Jess Gudiel, Shadow Artist, California Native Plant Gardener and Horticulturalist, and Rosanna Esparza Ahrens, Videographer and Graphic Artist. Tina Calderon shares stories and songs to honor her ancestors and her people, the Tongva, with myths and accounts of past and present life for the Tongva. Shadow art by Jess Gudiel brings a visual complement the oral narrative.
The Tongva are the native people of what is now called Los Angeles County and surrounding areas. Los Angeles is a city with over 4 million of people. Included in those millions are an estimated 2,000 Tongva people. Celebrating, memorializing, and sharing the stories and songs of Los Angeles’ indigenous history elevates an appreciation and understanding of a preceding time that can guide us towards a more bio-diverse present and future.
This piece was created especially for the NEA Big Read Program in Los Angeles, featuring the book, The Round House, and it was recorded by Rosanna Esparza Ahrens.
Narrated by: Tina Calderon
Shadow Illustrator: Jess Gudiel
Videographer: Rosanna Esparza Ahrens
In 2021 I decided to create an art piece that would illuminate the indigenous plants of Tovaangar, AKA Los Angeles, California. This project would come to be a shadow art film called Paviinokre, the Tongva expression for “We Flow/Fluidity.” I knew that to make a piece about native California plants, I also needed to include the stories of California’s native people — their lives are braided together with native plants like a beautiful basket. At the time, I had been working for a few years with Tina Calderon, Tongva and Chumash Culture Bearer. Tina was teaching me the original names and uses of the California native plants at the Watts Towers Arts Center (WATC) garden, which I established over ten years ago. My vision for the WTACC garden was and continues to be to use the space as an outdoor classroom for youth and families. As I’ve maintained the garden during the past decade, I’ve held this vision close. It’s in this garden that I teach shadow art theater classes, where my students and I learn about local wildlife. With Tina’s guidance, we also learn about the interconnectedness of original plants and original peoples.
Building from this relationship with Tina, the garden, and my shadow art theater practice, I invited Tina to collaborate on a piece honoring her ancestors and the Tongva story of the Seven Sisters (The Pleiades Constellation). She accepted my offer to work together, and our early conversations about the project flowed easily. The name Paviinokre resonated for Tina and me, as we are both Water loving/protecting humans. I’m grateful for the trust Tina granted me, because it set the tone for freedom of expression. Honoring this trust, I also frequently checked in with Tina, asking her to affirm the way the vision was unfolding. After every conversation with Tina, I was even more inspired to create.
To begin the work, Tina sent me a 12-minute voice recording in which she tells the Tongva story of the Seven Sisters constellation. Shadow art is about deciding what is seen in light and what is seen in darkness, and my research involved visiting deserts and other landscapes at night. Back at home, I listened to Tina’s recording second-by-second and sketched scenes from the narrative in black India ink on white paper. I then recreated these drawings in white chalk on black paper and cut out the shapes with a Japanese blade. From a giant sheet of transparent paper, I divided long horizontal strips that aligned in dimension with a vintage projector. I called these stretches of transparent paper scrolls, and pasted cutouts onto the surface of each scroll with permanent two-sided tape. It takes two people standing on either side of the projector to bring the shadows to life — one person feeds the scrolls onto the projector, and the other receives the scrolls as the images project. Paviinokre is a film that captures these moving images, set against audio of Tina’s voice.
At the time of conception, I felt as though Paviinokre would be epic. I wanted to make something mystical yet grounding. I began this project not knowing that the final piece would become a film, because I had never worked with this form of shadow art. I created this work to give viewers a sense of the vastness of space and time — I wanted Paviinokre to remind everyone of the limitlessness of the universe.
The pandemic forced everyone inside their homes, and oftentimes I felt myself tapping into a dark and dismal collective energy. But Paviinokre reveals that darkness doesn’t always need to feel dismal. With the right tools, darkness can be cut away to let light flow in. With my knives, I shed light on the things that need to be seen. With every cut, I inspire humanity to look up at the light of the stars. I know that the work will speak to the ones it needs to speak to. I dedicate Paviinokre to the ones that left this planet to become stars, and to the survivors. I offer Paviinokre for future generations, who will want and need to hear this story of the Seven Sisters. As above, so below.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jess Gudiel is an LA artist rooted in their practice in horticulture and shadow art and puppetry. Gudiel has worked in local schools and art centers for over ten years sharing knowledge of sustainable organic growing while also using shadow art to bring light to youth's creative expression of their interaction with local ecosystems. Learn more at her website or find her on Instagram @spider_womans_granddaughter
COVER ART
Video still of title slide from Paviinokre courtesy of Jess Gudiel and Tina Calderon.
