Artist’s statement
Land and Abolition: A Love Story is a short film about abolition. Written and performed by artist Raven Davis, Land and Abolition: A Love Story is an inquiry with the Land querying carceral logic, punishment, and harm, and the way it snakes itself through our lives, families, intimate relationships, and communities. Acknowledging the teachings that come from the Land and how they can be applied in seeking justice, accountability and restoration. It is also an embodied movement performance rooted in lived experience with the carceral system. A reminder, we have the tools and capacity to abolish systems that continue to disproportionately oppress Indigenous and Black people.
Credits
This film was recorded in the fall of 2022 on Anishinaabeg Territory in Muskoka.
Raven Davis, 2023. Music by Benjamin Tissot, Bensound.
Featured artist
Transcript
The Land, she teaches us.
Despite our shortcomings, from birth to death, she cradles us.
She continues to provide shelter, food,
Belonging, and love.
The Land. She provides everything for us.
Everything we need to abolish the systems
that dehumanize us
Soothing the desire to strike back,
An eye for an eye.
Seeking revenge for loss, grief, and suffering.
Who told you, you are free?
To truly be free, one must have all social determinants met
to live, survive and sustain a thriving future.
Until we all become Elders, and my life expectancy
isn’t half of yours.
Until we all have the agency to seek, and consent to
health care for our bodies and minds to restore, flourish, and grow.
Until our children and youth know their immense worth in society.
Until we all have clean water.
Until we all have a choice of citizenship.
Until all of our Elders are taken care of.
Until disability is a priority.
Until we all have housing,
with access to land and food security.
That’s when we will truly be free.
I want to remember, there’s good in all people.
And hate, and violence can be unlearned.
I want abolition to begin in my home,
With my children, and I how I choose to raise them
Protecting them from the systems
that have been put in place to split our families apart.
I want to teach them
there’re other ways to get through conflict
that don’t include the police, corporal punishments
perpetuating intergenerational trauma, stigmatized criminal futures,
and broken families.
I want abolition to begin and end with love.
With those I choose to love,
and with those who love me.
Honouring the sacredness and gift of loving another human:
By not taking each other for granted
By not treating the ones we love, as property.
By being aware of when white supremacy, capitalism,
and lateral violence rears its ugly head.
By putting an end to carceral and settler logic and law,
humiliation, psychiatric detention and public lynchings.
By reconciling with our histories,
restoring connection, accountability, and love with our families
and with each other.
My last protest will be
a call to love.
Not to forget, but to understand and accept.
And like the Land, she’s taught me
We have everything we need.