Rande Cook’s practice currently centers a collective response to the land, which holds the teaching of his forefathers. Contained within this work is the acknowledgement of material extraction and cultural erasure through its activation of traditional forms in new material contexts. The mask depicts the figure of the Speaker, who were usually chiefs carrying the responsibility of upholding land value by mediating communication between the land and its people. While consciously omitting the details of the face, Cook’s interpretation calls upon a sense of urgency towards the loss of old growth. To this end, the mask is also cast in resin to highlight the shift of material use in cultural practice as a result of such a loss.

Through a material as manufactured as resin, Cook still calls upon the land by integrating natural dyes into the mask derived from mycelium, the fungal network of communication connecting trees to each other through their roots.