The Khasi people trace their ancestry back to the stars. Hailing from the Northeastern state of Meghalaya in India, the Khasis are famous for having evolved a synergistic technology of weaving living architecture by braiding tree roots into architectural structures, like bridges, platforms and stairs. Their origin mythology is replete with allusions to the cosmos, their origin mythology abound with stories of space travel to meet their sister tribes in the sky. Rich in oral tradition, the Khasi cosmology offers compelling narrative accounts of how the tribes settled the earth, entered into kinship relations with the sky, the land, the creatures and other non-human entities. Tales of a tree whose roots sank into the very depths of the earth and whose trunk was so tall that its canopy reached the heavens, a tree that was a celestial stairway for space exploration, arising from the very navel of the earth, called Sophtehpenanang forms the fulcrum of their oral histories. This research illustrates the methodology and outcome of working closely with the Khasi community to develop an artistic piece that engages complex nuanced questions about space exploration’s relationship to the environment and climate change as well as explores what indigenous participation in space exploration might look like.
This research is undertaken in collaboration with the Living Root Bridge Foundation, Pynursula.