This publication accompanies "Dawsoma: Making Meaning", a retrospective screening of three films by Hopi filmmaker and video artist Victor Masayesva, Jr. presented in partnership with VTape as part of the 2019 imagineNATIVE Festival. The screening took place on October 24, 2019, and "Worn Trails/New Trails: Footsteps", a panel featuring the filmmaker and curator Dorothy Christian (Cucw-la), was held on October 25th, 2019.

Christian's essay emphasizes the centrality of the Hopi worldview within Masayesva Jr.'s work, at the level of both narrative and visual representation and underlying philosophy behind his chosen aesthetics. In reference to Maori filmmaker Barry Barclay, Christian describes Masayesva Jr.’s films as exemplifying an “Indigenous gaze”. While referencing the concepts of “Fourth Cinema” and the “Fourth World”, Christian is critical of solely Euro-Western frameworks for film analysis. Because Indigenous knowledge systems are disregarded within these epistemologies, Christian argues that they are insufficient for analyzing work by Indigenous filmmakers. Considering visual storytelling as a kind of knowledge production, she describes the “interiority” of Masayesva Jr.’s films as they reflect a Hopi perspective on reciprocal, intimate relationships between humans, other beings, the Earth, and the universe.

The publication also includes a brief curatorial statement for the screening “Dawsoma”, and bios for curator Dorothy Christian and filmmaker Victor Masayesva, Jr.