WATCH NOW: Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Sandra Brewster present “Viscosity”.
Viscosity was filmed at Leslie Spit in Toronto – a human made piece of land that juts into Chi’Nibish (Lake Ontario) and has now become naturalized. Leslie Spit is home to Tommy Thompson Park and a large portion of it is classified as an Environmentally Sensitive Area (ESA) and it is recognized as an Important Bird Area. (It is also a setting in Simpson’s highly recommended novel Noopiming: The Cure For White Ladies.) Simpson commissioned Brewster in making the film and supported Brewster in developing her own visual interpretation of the song. The resulting film is a rich black and white experimental work where land is centered, where Black and Indigenous place-making are celebrated, and where images are in conversation with sound.