POWER (PANORAMAS) 2013-Present
Morro Bay, retired gas power plant (Chumash)
07.20.17 20”x134”
‘Atishwin - supernatural power
‘Ushk’a’lish - natural power
- Tsmuwich language dictionary (associated with Barbareño Chumash, one of the fourteen bands of the Chumash Nation)
“The three bodies of life - land, air and water - sustain us; we are dependent on them for our existence and survival.”
- Mati Waiya, ceremonial elder and founder of Wishtoyo Chumash Foundation
Morro Bay is located within the ancestral territory of the Chumash, the original inhabitants of the central coast of California from Morro Bay sout to Malibu and the Channel Islands. The rock in Morrow Bay is called Lisamu'. Here the boundary between land and sky begins to merge.This boundary between upper and lower layers evokes ‘alapayashup (the World Above), ‘itiyashup (the Middle World), and C’oyinahsup (the World Below) that comprise the Chumash universe. ‘Alapayashup is home to the sky people. ‘Itiyashup is home to the “First People,” pre-human animal beings prior to the creation of the Chumash. C’oyinahsup is home to the nunashish, powerful and malevolent supernatural beings of the night.
The morning fog hides the delineation between worlds. In Chumash cosmology, power moves between worlds: animating, acting, and invigorating. In a 2020 interpretative planning leaflet published by Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, Susan Suntree writes:
Anywhere power
moves through the Above and Below
into the Middle World
and speaks to those
who have the knowledge-power
to understand is kas’ elew.
- Sacred Sites: The Secret History of Southern California
‘Alchuklash, or Chumash astronomers, acquired power from the Upper World, divining knowledge and intention for the benefit of society below. In the words of Chumash linguist Matthew Vestuto, this is a place “where the acquired visions found actuation, the wind (spirit) carrying the vision off the surface of the womb-like cave into the world to manifest.”
Research conducted by Thuy Vi Vivian Ngyuen