Curated by Visiting Assistant Professor of Art History and Environmental Studies Christopher Green, the List Gallery is showcasing “The sky loves to hear me sing: Woodland art in Transmotion.” The exhibition features artists Norval Morrisseau, Andrea Carlson, Alan Michelson, and Native Art Department International, which is a collaborative partnership between Maria Hupfield and Jason Lujan.
As part of the college’s Cooper Series, the exhibition, centering around the “dynamic, migratory, and sovereign nature of Woodland Native art across time,” presents works including acrylic on canvas, digital prints, and a video installation. Its vitrines include artifacts that similarly explore the “vitality and versatility” of Woodland art across time and material forms.
Before visiting the exhibition, the use of the word “transmotion” in its title stood out, as it evoked a sense of fluidity and movement across different mediums and contexts. This concept, arising from Anishinaabe literary theorist Gerald Vizenor, is the “sovereign assertion of movement through time, place and visionary narrative.”
As I explored the exhibition, I felt this notion of transmotion resonating deeply within each work, encouraging viewers to consider not only artistic expression but also the continuity of Woodland Native art as it transforms and resists traditional ideas of time and space.
With the front gallery showcasing the expressive vibrancy of the Woodland School style, which “fused Anishinaabe visual heritage and stories with modernist forms,” the paintings seemed to offer a glimpse into the histories of Native nations and a reconception of the past and present. In the “Thunderbird and Canoe in Flight” painting by Morrisseau, an animikii (the thunderbird) travels alongside a car; in the “Exit” and “Anti-Retro” prints by Carlson, talons and cowboys meet the horizon of Lake Superior, a region that has been traditionally inhabited by Anishinaabe people. Being drawn into an intricate web of histories, creativity, and reimaginings, it was as if these works became portals that transported me into the artists’ expansive landscapes of cultural tradition, memory, and identity.
Transitioning into the rear gallery, I was met with a drastically different sight. Michelson’s video installation, “Ye hurry walk,” featured the oil painting “Penn’s Treaty with the Indians” by Benjamin West (whose birthplace is the Benjamin West House on campus). Occasionally flickering to reveal historic documents such as the land charter granted to William Penn and a map of the “Improved Part of the Province of Pennsilvania,” the Lenape people were gradually erased by the documents as their silhouettes became filled with the text of the 1737 Walking Purchase. Representing how the Lenape were tricked out of 1.2 million acres of land, Michelson examines how the founding myth of Pennsylvania was “warped to justify the unscrupulous actions of Penn’s sons in the Walking Purchase.” As I watched the satellite view of the taken land in modern-day flow through the outlines of the Lenape figures, I felt the weight of colonial histories settling in me, prompting me to reflect on how these past unfulfilled promises and repressions still continue to shape contemporary Indigenous experiences.
Also in the rear gallery, artifacts such as beaded whimsies and a wooden box patterned with imitation quillwork represent the adaptation of Native art and culture for non-Native audiences and showcase the delicate balance between market demands or tastes and a connection to one’s roots.
Wandering back and forth between the front and rear galleries, it seemed like I was traversing a space where the past and the present converged. As an observer, I was mindful that I was being invited into spaces deeply rooted in cultural knowledge and experiences that I do not share. Both the traditional and contemporary styles form parts of the ongoing dialogue, constantly informing each other rather than being confined by time. Each piece, by resisting the static interpretations of time, offers opportunities for reflection on the mobility of identity, which again emphasizes the concept of transmotion. Perhaps, Woodland art is a living, ever-evolving force that continuously preserves, reinterprets and makes new again Indigenous narratives.
The exhibition will be hosted in the List Gallery until Oct. 29. The gallery is free and open to the public from Tuesday to Sunday, 12-5 p.m. For more information on subsequent events in the Cooper Series, visit https://www.swarthmore.edu/cooper-series.
