Oglála Lakȟóta artist Kite develops protocols that translate across tongues, species, and technologies. Tȟokátakiya Owótȟaŋla na Awíyuškiŋphiča is a score that gathers the responses of the Vera List Center’s staff, board, and community to a single question—What is your dream for the future of the VLC?. The score emerges from semantic mapping techniques developed by Wíȟaŋblé Sá Center Post Doctoral Fellow Antoine Bellemare, with graphic design by Post Master’s Fellow Mauro Tosarelli.

Tȟokátakiya Owótȟaŋla na Awíyuškiŋphiča is commissioned on occasion of the Vera List Center’s two-year Focus Theme, Matter of Intelligence—a multiplatform research program exploring the origins and implications of intelligence across species, systems, and societies through art and critical inquiry. Matter of Intelligence approaches this key subject through its tangible, material implications. It considers intelligence not just as an abstract concept but as something that manifests—whether through human cognition, natural processes, or artificial systems—and actively shapes and impacts our understanding and relations with the immaterial and physical worlds. With Tȟokátakiya Owótȟaŋla na Awíyuškiŋphiča, collective dreaming becomes a powerful form of intelligence and a method of enacting shared futurity.

COMPOSER
Kite

DESIGN
Mauro Tosarelli

DREAMERS
Danny Altabef
Tabor Banquer
JK Brown
Re’al Christian
Christoph Cox
Susan Hapgood
Suzanne Kite
Carin Kuoni
Megan Noh
Sadaf Padder
Eriola Pira
Jan Tancinco
Ellen Taubman

PERFORMANCE
On October 9, 2026, as part of the annual VLC Community Dinner, Dream Futures, an ensemble of improvising student musicians from The New School interpret the score live, joined by soloists Robbie Wing and Kite. Over the course of the evening the piece opens outward, taking in the dreams of the audience gathered that night and re-forming itself around them.