Eliska places us within an ancient and uneasy relationship with the natural world. We depend upon other forms of life for our survival, yet possess the power to pursue, consume and destroy — not only individual creatures, but the ecosystems that sustain them.
In Cycles of Hunting and Hunted, Turtle Island, Eliska refuses to resolve that tension. Need and greed may both result in taking, but they do not carry the same moral weight. Respect and gratitude may acknowledge the life lost, but they do not undo the consequences of its taking. The work leaves us between dependence and dominion, asking where one ends and the other begins.
Modern society has magnified both our power and the distance separating us from its consequences. Our appetites — as individuals, societies and nations — can overwhelm other lives, communities and ecosystems. We may no longer see ourselves as hunters, yet the reach of our choices has never been greater.
Cycles of Hunting and Hunted asks how we exercise power over one another and the natural world — and whether standing on guard begins by accepting the responsibilities that power places upon us.
