Hél čhaŋkú kiŋ ȟpáye (There lies the road), an installation and performance by Oglála Lakȟóta artist Suzanne Kite, represents the culmination of the artist’s year-long research project Wówasukiye waŋží ahóuŋpȟapi kte (There is a rule that we must observe). Produced at the invitation of the Vera List Center for Art and Politics as part of its 2020–2022 As for Protocols focus theme, the project considers the ethical creation of artwork using Artificial Intelligences through the development of protocols based on Lakȟóta ontologies.

This publication accompanies Hél čhaŋkú kiŋ ȟpáye and features a commissioned essay by Riel Bellow. Reflecting on their first encounters and long-term collaboration with Kite, Bellow considers spaces for reciprocity and collective knowing with nonhuman beings, writing, “Kite’s There lies the road is a proposition for a Good Way [an ethical way] of being in relation. It is an open ceremony, an invitation into this Way, an invitation to prayer, like a string of beads. A series of forms that hold open the space for thought and intention. As Fred Moten says, ‘…gathering in call and response is who we are and what we do.’ A practice of listening and responding, of listening and pausing, of listening to the contours and singing back the shapes.” A digital project by Bellow and Kite featuring sound documentation from the installation complements the print publication.