Collection Focus by Sky Hopinka: Sunflower Siege Engine

A new addition to BAMPFA’s collection, Sunflower Siege Engine reflects a lineage of Indigenous resistance connected to the Bay Area today. Through vivid cinematography, the grain of archival footage, and a layered soundscape, the film offers a meditation on resilience and belonging. Hopinka reminds us that the land and its histories hold both wounds and wisdom. In the artist’s words, “Being decentered from a land and a home burdens many of us. . . . It’s hard to parse out the pain of the elders and pain that’s your own. . . . Intergenerational suffering becomes a transgenerational reckoning.”