Alata from Bill Hill on Vimeo.

Looped digital media on single channel.

Qechela Taca is a series of works exploring genocidal cultures. Homogeneous groups have shown to be better able to get along, but it comes at a cost: they are less creative. Diversity is the key to survival, but throughout human history we have struggled to embrace the very things that benefit our survival. This series explores theme of survivalism through metaphorical imagery of indigenous american and jewish cultures paralleled with natural environments as man continues to battle with the balance of place.

Spirituality plays a very important role in the work, especially with it connection with the natural environment. It frames who we are. Native people believe that we are the land and the land is us.

The environment is a collection of four sacred elements.  Water, Earth, Fire, and Air.

Some of the prophecies of indigenous tribes talk about a time when technology and development will be so far out of balance that it may affect the future of our planet. Industrialization has always wanted to control the land, control the people. Globalization places no value in people, no value in religious and spiritual principles, no value in the protection of the commons.

When we lose that understanding of natural balance, industry, development, and globalization can do what they want to do, because there are no values behind their structures. Industrialization killed off the Old-World tribes, their identification, their traditional form of governance and replaced them with kingdoms and peasants. They’ve lost their connections to the land and who they are.

It's important to carry on the traditions and the culture of Native peoples, especially those who are trying to practice ways that have been given to them since time immemorial, are an endangered species. Acculturation and assimilation have lead to cultural genocide.