Abstract
The Red God is a short essay film featuring wildlife camera footage of foxes from my back yard in Belfast. In the film I explore the issue of belonging as a new arrival in Belfast, and question how I can express the care and guardianship that my Māori tūpuna (ancestors) showed their non-human cohabitants who were seen as relatives, tied to them through whakapapa (genealogy) and descended from the same atua (gods). In the research statement I outline how my creative practice is grounded in adoption theory, focused on belonging and informed by a decolonizing ethos.