“Anax̱ Yaa Nadéin (it is flowing through it) is a consideration of persistence and the consequences of resistance. Formally the work references museum displays of Indigenous North American and African basketry, basket-wall home decor, and the cinematic identification of thieves via ski-mask cut-outs incised into each basket. The work insists on the persistence of Indigenous connection to land and culture through continuum and memory; embedded in bodies, objects, and languages. Indigenous continuum, like water, is capable of gentle imperceptible movement and sudden force, able to shape and wear down stone.

Underlying the work is knowledge that this strength has been a threat to colonial and settler claims to control land and bodies. In this shadow, generations of people Indigenous to the Americas and Africa who resist control, have been marginalized, vilified, incarcerated, and killed. Indigenous cultural production has been commodified, stolen, imitated, and controlled as part of settler-colonial divide and conquer strategies to assert the power and legitimacy of the state. The baskets in the installation reflect this range of commodification, theft, and imitation: mass produced baskets are displayed alongside old Indigenous-made baskets and contemporary baskets handwoven in Africa for trade. All the baskets look back at the viewer, each of them a container for what flows through: the persistence of Indigenous presence and resistance.”

— Nicholas Galanin on Anax̱ Yaa Nadéin (it is flowing through it)