Culture
Alan Michelson Talks Dinosaurs, Murderous US Presidents, and Platinum-Gilded Native “Knowledge Keepers”
In this episode of the Hyperlurgic podcast, artist Alan Michelson discusses his journey of reconnecting with his indigenous heritage and his latest sculpture project, 'Knowledge Keepers,' wh...
Alan Michelson Talks Dinosaurs, Murderous US Presidents, and Platinum-Gilded Native “Knowledge Keepers”
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Interactive Transcript
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I was exposed at an early age to dinosaur tracks.
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My mother enrolled me in my first drawing class
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when I was seven years old.
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And from the place where she dropped me off
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on the street, you walked up a driveway
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that was paved with some of the fossilized stones
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with dinosaur tracks.
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So I would literally time travel.
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As soon as I got out of the car,
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I'm like thousands of years,
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and my imagination was just set off like a fire.
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And I was a curious guy.
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I went for it, you know, hooked on and sinker.
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So I think that that's sort of the foundation
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of some of my time travel.
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I guess I think of the land as a sort of silent witness.
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And so then if I pull up some things,
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then maybe I'm the mouthpiece or I'm the advocate.
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Sometimes I feel like I'm an advocate
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or a speaker for things that can't speak.
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Hello and welcome back to the Hyperlurgic podcast.
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You're just listening to the voice of artist Alan Michelson,
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an artist and Mohawk member of the six nations
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of the Grand River, who's based here in New York City.
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As a child growing up in Boston,
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he'd always been fascinated by Cyrus Dalyns
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appealed to the great spirit,
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which is a sculpture of a native warrior
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on a mighty horse that's been outside the museum since 1912.
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It's a beautifully done work,
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but illustrates a nefarious myth called the vanishing race.
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The idea that indigenous people in America
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had completely lost the battle with their colonizers
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and would soon disappear.
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Many years later, with years of work
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as an acclaimed artist under his belt,
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Michelson was commissioned to sculpt his answer to that sculpture
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and that's what we're here to talk about.
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The knowledge keepers are a pair of sculptures
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unveiled in late 2024,
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modeled on two living community members
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who are indigenous to the Boston area.
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Over a century later,
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they gleam with a silver finish,
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a powerful response to the myth of the vanishing race
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that undergirds the great spirit sculpture nearby.
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In this episode, we're gonna talk all about his story
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from reconnecting with his indigenous heritage
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after years of being separated from his birth family
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through adoption,
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his wide-ranging site-specific public art practice,
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what it means to be indigenous
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from the northeastern United States,
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why George Washington and many other US presidents
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are called town destroyers in some native languages
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and the place he feels most at home,
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here in our beloved New York City.
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We also visited with curator Ian Altiveer
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at the MFA in Boston,
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who told us about the process behind the new addition
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to the museum's facade,
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which coincidentally is also part of the inaugural Boston
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public art triennial that starts in May 2025
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and continues until October.
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I'm Houdog Bartanian,
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the co-founder and editor-in-chief of Hyperlurgic.
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I think we have a lot to cover and to talk about,
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so let's get started.
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Welcome everyone.
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Today we have Alan Michelson.
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Hi, Alan.
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How's it going?
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It's going well.
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So I'm really excited to talk to you about your project
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that's currently up at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston,
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knowledge keepers.
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Congratulations, by the way.
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Oh, thank you.
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So we met each other about 10 years ago
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at the Indigenous New York Conference
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that you helped put together.
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And I still think about that conference
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because it was a really great opportunity
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to sort of like open the eyes of a lot of us
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to an Indigenous history here that has been hidden.
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And I bring that up particularly
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because so much of your work is about those layers of history
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that are often erased,
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that are often ignored,
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that might be repurposed in different ways,
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and also just different perspectives.
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And that's one of the things I appreciate about it.
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And in this case in Boston,
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you're responding to a specific sculpture
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that you remember from your own youth
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as well as through the years.
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Well, my interest in history goes back to childhood.
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And when we moved to Boston,
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when I was nine, my step sister took me
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on the Freedom Trail,
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which you probably familiar with it.
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It's marked by a red line.
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It goes past these naturally significant historic sites.
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But what impressed me the most at that age
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was a very modest monument
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that wasn't even visible above street level
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in a circle of cobblestones,
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right, a dozen feet in diameter
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that was marking the site of the Boston massacre
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from 1770, one of the catalysts of the American Revolution.
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And I remember standing on those cobblestones
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and just thinking, wow, people were killed here
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a couple hundred years ago.
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And it was like electrifying somehow
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through the soles of my feet.
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And that ended up being a sort of basis
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in a way for a lot of the work that I do,
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which is site-specific and raising up histories
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that are not visible at surface level.
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So MFA Boston was one of those sites from my childhood.
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And the Museum of Fine Arts Boston
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was my first sort of encyclopedic museum as a child.
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We never forget those, Dewey.
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Yeah, we don't.
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Hi, I'm Ian Altivear.
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I'm the Eale Family Chair
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of the MFA Boston's Department of Contemporary Rye.
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When I arrived at the MFA Boston in the fall of 2023,
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one of the first activities and programming areas
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that I needed to tackle
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was what to do with these two plints
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that were at our main entrance
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on either side of the stairs.
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They had been occupied for a number of years
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by two rather non-descripts, cast iron,
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urns that were soon to be removed.
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And we all thought that this would be an amazing opportunity
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to ask a living artist to contribute something special
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to our entrance.
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We conceived of the project as an annual or biannual
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or something in the middle there,
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opportunity for an artist to make a really big impact.
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In a space that is our first point of entry
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for the public, a fantastic colleague Marina Togienko,
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who's our associate curator of indigenous art
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in the Department of Art of the Americas,
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put Alan's name forward.
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We all thought, the team all thought
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that Alan would be an amazing choice
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for this first go-around for a bit of variety of reasons.
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He's spent time from about age eight to about age 18
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riding the tee back and forth every day
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on the way to school, looking at the museum,
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looking at the sculptures in front of the museum,
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and then he returned at some point
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to go to art school here as well.
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So that was important to us too,
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that there was some connection to the city
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and also of course, because of those connections,
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he had quite a sophisticated take, I think,
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on the sculpture that's there by Cyrus Dallin.
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My memories of that sculpture go back to nine years old.
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I've seen it in all kinds of weather
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and all sorts of ages and all sorts of understandings of art.
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It's called appeal to the great spirit,
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and it's a plains rider, nearly naked,
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but wearing a very stereotypical war bonnet.
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But also generic moccasins.
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Generic moccasins, he's on a stilled horse.
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It's a very still sort of monument,
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and it's striking in its own way.
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I mean, Cyrus Dallin, like many of the sculptures
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of his generation, agostists and Goddins and a lot of those,
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they were skilled sculptors.
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And so the thing about the great spirit
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is that it's not without appeal.
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Right, no.
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So that sort of gives it a certain power,
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but I'm not sure that that statement
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is really relevant today because it was assuming,
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it was taking a humanitarian stance,
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or I think he thought it was taking a humanitarian stance,
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at a time when native people had been reduced,
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and been decimated, and it was implying
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that this could be the last of a people.
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I mean, he's playing with the vanishing Indians trope, right?
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Absolutely.
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Which was super, super prevalent then.
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And there was almost like, it was an assumption
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that native people were going to disappear.
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Yes, and thank God it was a wrong,
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I proved wrong.
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You know, I was thinking, I know from being a Bostonian,
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that Bostonians know how to read that sort of erasculpture.
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It's all around, it's all in the public parks.
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And I just thought that if I could do a different version of that,
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that would hold its own in terms of look,
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and in terms of materials, you know, bronze,
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it's skilled at bronze, it's a lot of the older bronze,
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that they would be able to be in better conversation with that,
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and hopefully change the atmosphere in the front of the museum.
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Do you remember the first time you saw the Great Spirit?
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Did you feel like, hey, representation?
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Or was it like, what is this?
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Like, well, what was that kind of relationship?
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Well, at 9, I know it's not that sophisticated,
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so I just was, you know, wow, you know, like I love torses,
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and that's sort of, you know, the romance of the American West,
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all that stuff, so.
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Well, that's how it functions, right?
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Like it sort of, like it does appeal to those different things.
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Exactly, it was the hit of the Paris Somme in 1909 or something,
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which is why it ended up there.
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You know, the thing about that sculpture too,
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is I was thinking, because I was looking at other images
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of the vanishing Indian sort of trope, right?
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Yes.
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And it was actually strangely the most optimistic one,
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in a weird way, like I feel like most of them are really,
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really depressing, like in this kind of weird, like, defeated,
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kind of like way.
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Do you think there's something unique about that sculpture
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that he maybe that also may have appealed to you?
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Yeah, I mean, I think the body language,
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if you could say that, of the pose of this sculpture,
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is less that stereotype of the dying Indian.
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But I was thinking about it.
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I found there's something sort of Christian that seems to also...
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You're right.
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... to enter into it.
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That's so such a good point.
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There's some sort of thing.
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And, you know, there were some crucifix paintings,
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where the usual crucifix painting,
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the head of Christ is always bowed down,
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looking like that.
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Right, right, right.
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A few that are like this.
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That's right.
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And I was thinking that might have inspired him in some way.
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You know that brings up for me too.
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That's also this image of, like, Lord,
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why have you forsaken me?
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Exactly.
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Do you know what I mean?
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Oh, oh, I just got a little like,
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oh, that's...
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That is kind of creepier than I thought.
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You know, well-manged, probably.
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I mean, I don't think it should be junked.
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I don't think it should be hidden.
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But I do think mine should stay there.
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Yeah.
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So let's talk about the knowledge keepers.
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There are two sculptures of a local nipmock activist.
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Andre, a strong, bare heart gains,
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and also Julia Mardin,
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a seasoned artist, and a community leader.
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Right.
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So both of these figures, one male, one female,
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are sort of at the entrance of the museum.
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And they're sort of like, they're also made of bronze,
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and then they're covered with platinum.
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They're gilded.
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Gilded with platinum, with lodgings.
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And they have this kind of really radiant energy at the entrance.
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Tell us a little bit about your thinking behind this,
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and a little bit about how you saw them in relationship
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to the entrance, the sculpture, to the public.
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Well, you know, my models are live,
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bank goodness.
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Yep.
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Very accomplished people.
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Very important to their communities.
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They are knowledge keepers.
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And so they already are radiant.
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So it was like, how do I capture that?
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So part of it was pose.
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Like I knew I wanted Julia to be holding up to that.
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Yeah.
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Eagle Feather Fan.
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Right.
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And I also had seen images and seen talks by Andre,
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a strong bear heart gains.
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And so I just thought that would really
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counter the sort of passivity or the supplication,
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the sort of pleating, planted thing of the plane's figure.
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So part of it was just wanting that life to come through.
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And then like material.
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So what should it be?
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And radiant substances have a certain sort
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of metaphorical and metaphysical significance
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to Northeastern, Woodland people.
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Right.
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So that glow is something that's almost like medicine.
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Right.
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So traditionally it was from shells, you know,
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from like Wampum.
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But also there was native copper in the Midwest that was
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created.
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And then when silver came with the colonists,
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that became a big thing.
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Right.
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So I was trying to riff on that and extend it.
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Turns out that silver leaf tarnishes almost immediately.
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Anybody who has silver knows that that's a problem.
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Yes.
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Outdoor is even worse.
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So it went with platinum, which is the most stable,
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the most durable of all those substances that would be
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metals used for gilding.
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Not cheap also.
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Not bad.
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You got it in before the tariff, though.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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But it, you know, it's also forward facing
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it has featureistic, right?
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Associates as well.
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And you definitely get that.
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There's like this sci-fi kind of aspect, like,
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you know, like space travel or something.
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Do you know there's like something very like
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futuristic about those images.
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And then also I think with like the great spirit sculpture,
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it's sort of like it changes the sculpture
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because he's not alone anymore.
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And he's flanked by these two figures.
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Yes.
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In fact, if you stand at a certain spot
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and his up raised arms, it's almost like the figures are in his...
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Oh, no, I got that immediately.
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And it's sort of like I loved how it like,
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it almost felt like this person wasn't alone anymore.
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I feel answered.
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What do you think of the choice of making it silver?
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No.
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And I'd love to hear your take on how you think it's sort of like
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completes the work or maybe compliments other parts of the museum.
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It's a great question.
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We went through a lot of possibilities
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with the finish for those particular sculptures.
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I think Alan is always really interested in color
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and in the kind of materiality of things.
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It seems to play an important role color especially
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in a lot of past works.
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Color and reflection, I'd say.
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Once they had been made bronze, right?
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Cast and bronze, you can either use a patina.
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You could paint them, which kind of tends to dull
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some of the sharp edges of a nice bronze cast.
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Or you can gild them.
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And Alan had thought about a metallic finish.
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Bronze itself is metal.
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And he landed on platinum in a really interesting way.
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He was researching this a lot and read some studies
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from anthropologists and archaeologists who said that,
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you know, platinum is really an indigenous metal.
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It's something that Indigenous peoples
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in South America first kind of discovered
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and used in all kinds of ways.
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What's also cool about platinum is that it is one
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of the most incorruptible metals, right?
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So it is really protective.
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And as a result of that, it's used for all kinds of applications
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in kind of space-aged technologies.
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And it has this amazing, beautiful kind of other worldly sheen.
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And so rather than being reflective,
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it is more shimmering, right?
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And so they have this beautiful,
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most lunar quality, especially at night.
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Yeah.
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And that spectacular gleam also is a protective coating, right?
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So Alan is kind of protecting these amazing people,
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folks who passed by the museum,
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who are used to seeing, you know, every day,
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maybe the same old sculpture out there,
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and now seeing something different,
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something spectacular, something glowing
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from the inside almost, right?
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And so that's also special, too.
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Let's talk a little bit about your own past.
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And I know your families from six nations,
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reservation in southern Ontario.
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And as I told you previous to our conversation,
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I've been there because I grew up in Toronto.
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And so I remember going to the six nations.
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And it being the only reservation,
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maybe that people in Ontario even knew, frankly.
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You know, it was very popular.
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The power I was very well attended, right?
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You know, all these,
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and there was a presence, you know, in the community,
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in a way that I think very few other native communities,
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at least in southern Ontario had.
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How would you characterize it?
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I mean, there are few reservations,
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or reserves east of the Mississippi,
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and Andrew Jackson to carry that.
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Right.
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So it's only people like yourself who are,
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let's say Torrentonian, who are conversant with six nations
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in the powwows.
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There are some, you know,
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many reserves in New York,
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and the people around there are familiar.
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But, you know, most people just think native people
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are only in the West.
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It's also interesting because
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scratching the surface of the Northeast,
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there's always something native, right?
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Like it's like both that that contradiction
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is very prevalent here.
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Well, there's still lots of place names.
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Yes.
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So that's, I think, what most people are familiar with,
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and then they're familiar with the stereotypes.
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So in terms of your own sort of past,
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do you want to tell us a little bit about growing up?
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Where did you grow up?
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And what was your relationship with your own communities?
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Well, you know, I have a bit of a complicated background.
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I was part of that, probably 30% of my generation,
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who were separated from their native families
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through adoption.
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And so I grew up in, first in Holyoke, Massachusetts,
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and then our family moved to Boston.
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So I wasn't even aware of my mohawk background
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until I was in my 20s.
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Wow.
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So tell us a little bit if you don't mind sharing.
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What were the conditions for that adoption?
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We talk about family separations,
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but I guess people don't often understand
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what that actually meant for people's lives.
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Well, you know, there are all forms of native removal.
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Right.
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And I think that was trying to be the most benign.
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Right.
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It was trying to answer a need, you know.
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So in my case, it was a voluntary adoption.
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But then again, you could say that the position
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that colonialism had left my native mother and family
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was not conducive to.
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Oh, no.
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I would argue that it definitely,
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like those conditions, like poverty and other things,
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those are structural, right?
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Yes.
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But adoption is, you know, age old.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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But I think that probably like many adoptees,
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you want to know.
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Absolutely.
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And you're not told, in fact, there are laws,
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you know, in Massachusetts protecting all that information.
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So I was fortunate in being able to do that
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and to reunite with my native family.
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Well, I think just so the audience sort of thinks about it too.
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I mean, could native families adopt white children?
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I don't think so.
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Yeah, that's what I mean.
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So that's what I'm saying, like where the structural
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violence of the system is actually much more
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in great, right?
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You know, like everything, it represents power relations.
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Absolutely.
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And it was in many ways.
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I mean, I was raised in a great loving family
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and was really well educated in public schools
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and so forth.
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And I've tried to use that education
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to not only learn about my culture
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before I was even immersed in it.
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So you mentioned in your 20s is when you realized
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you had a Mohawk heritage.
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I mean, I would assume that there would be an amount of shock
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in that kind of real life.
spk_0
It's mind-blowing.
spk_0
And just think of it that to be part of a relatively small
spk_0
population and then just wanting to understand it, embrace it,
spk_0
and live in it.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Which is what I've been doing for 40 odd years.
spk_0
So when you first heard that what impact did it have on you,
spk_0
was it like, why was this hidden from me
spk_0
or was it more of a, wow, this has just changed the ground
spk_0
beneath my feet?
spk_0
Yeah, I mean, I felt, I could have always felt connected
spk_0
to the land here.
spk_0
And that was one of the first things that hit me.
spk_0
I am connected inside a very powerful way
spk_0
that was subliminal.
spk_0
So I didn't say that was the biggest thing,
spk_0
but then it was all curiosity.
spk_0
Like, how do I approach this?
spk_0
How do I need it to learn?
spk_0
And so I've had some amazing teachers
spk_0
and mentors along the way.
spk_0
Members of my family from Six Nations,
spk_0
members of their larger social networks.
spk_0
Jimmy Durham was an important figure for me.
spk_0
Absolutely.
spk_0
You know, Edgar Heepa-Birds, you know,
spk_0
that there were a lot of influence.
spk_0
That generation, yeah.
spk_0
Did it change the way you saw certain objects?
spk_0
I would.
spk_0
Well, it changed the way I see the world.
spk_0
And in fact, I think my work formats are important to me.
spk_0
And one of the reasons I like panoramic format
spk_0
and use it is because there's not one vantage point.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
It invites multi-perspectives.
spk_0
And it invites dialogue in relation
spk_0
because like some of the ones,
spk_0
I've made her pretty big.
spk_0
Huge.
spk_0
So you end up being in dialogue with it,
spk_0
rather than just sort of like a small picture
spk_0
where you just sort of gulp it and move on.
spk_0
It's something that's.
spk_0
And that's one of the reasons I also like Time-Based Art
spk_0
is that things move.
spk_0
There's not a story.
spk_0
There's not a narrative.
spk_0
There's not a sequential narrative in my work.
spk_0
But it is looking at,
spk_0
there's time is quite embedded in it.
spk_0
Absolutely.
spk_0
So I want to talk about the piece heard
spk_0
that I love that piece.
spk_0
So you did that in the UK, I believe, correct?
spk_0
Yes, in 2005.
spk_0
And what was the name of the space you did it in?
spk_0
If I remember.
spk_0
It was Compton Verney.
spk_0
Compton Verney.
spk_0
And what you did there was you had the sound of a stampede.
spk_0
Yes, a bison stampede.
spk_0
A bison stampede.
spk_0
That visitors to this beautiful room
spk_0
designed by this neoclassical architect.
spk_0
John Adams.
spk_0
John Adams.
spk_0
You know, here this buffalo,
spk_0
this bison stampede,
spk_0
you know, through this sort of pristine white space.
spk_0
Or at least they hear the sounds of it.
spk_0
How would you characterize the piece?
spk_0
Well, it's a beautiful space
spk_0
that John Adams designed.
spk_0
It's marble and it's, you know, very classical looking.
spk_0
And outside, I don't know if you saw many pictures of it.
spk_0
It's an invisible work in a way.
spk_0
It's a sound, it's sound work.
spk_0
Yep.
spk_0
There were just speakers on either end of this thing.
spk_0
But, you know, I arranged the sound.
spk_0
So it sounded like they were, you know, in the distance.
spk_0
And then coming as you'd
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
Closer to the other speaker.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
And then vice versa.
spk_0
So it would just go back and forth.
spk_0
There were these, you know,
spk_0
bucolic sleeping cows that were just outside the,
spk_0
just outside the,
spk_0
today free cow.
spk_0
No, they just, they just, they just,
spk_0
you know, we're grazing away, you know.
spk_0
So that was, that was, that was a cool piece.
spk_0
So that is another layer, almost like this domestication.
spk_0
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
You know, from the bison to these cows.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Kind of like a European cow versus an American cow.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
Exactly.
spk_0
Almost this kind of like, you know,
spk_0
oh, yeah, I love that layer.
spk_0
There's one more layer there.
spk_0
That's so great.
spk_0
I've noticed this, this one pattern in your work.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Which is like your sculpture in Richmond, Virginia,
spk_0
where there's a relationship to this quote-unquote sort of like
spk_0
older figure that, you know, may have been pivotal in like the history of America,
spk_0
in the, in the case of Virginia, where it's like a building designed by Thomas Jefferson.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
And in this case about this, this room that's sort of designed or in the case in Boston,
spk_0
where you're like responding to this older sculptor.
spk_0
And so tell me a little bit about that relationship.
spk_0
What, what, what is it that really excites you and what, what, like,
spk_0
ignites your imagination there?
spk_0
Well, you know, it was prevalent this summer when I was able to show at the Thomas Cole.
spk_0
Another, another figure, right?
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
Really, the father, you could say not only the father of the Hudson River School,
spk_0
but of maybe of American painting in general.
spk_0
Landscape painting for sure.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
And so you're right.
spk_0
Maybe that model of not starting from scratch,
spk_0
but starting from some sort of conversation with something that's pre-existing,
spk_0
and then sort of working from the present
spk_0
and wanting to project something into the future.
spk_0
But you know, I was exposed also at an early age to the dinosaur tracks.
spk_0
Oh, yes.
spk_0
Oh, I love that story.
spk_0
In Hollywood.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Those are the first recorded or at least that publicly known dinosaur tracks, right?
spk_0
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
And that's in Holyoke, Massachusetts.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
That blew my mind.
spk_0
I can be a little less than that.
spk_0
A couple of miles from where we lived.
spk_0
And and it had, there was this sort of folk sculpture.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
Of a dinosaur that I just love.
spk_0
That was the first sculpture I really loved.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
It was like a roadside attraction.
spk_0
Yes, it was a roadside attraction.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
But the tracks themselves were amazing.
spk_0
Like kids loved dinosaurs.
spk_0
You know, so.
spk_0
But I also, you know, my mother enrolled me in my first drawing class
spk_0
when I was seven years old.
spk_0
I was the youngest in the class.
spk_0
And to walk from the place where she dropped me off on the street,
spk_0
you walked up a driveway that was paved with some of the fossilized.
spk_0
No way.
spk_0
spk_0
With dinosaur tracks.
spk_0
So I would literally time travel.
spk_0
As soon as I got out of the car, I'm like, you know, thousands of years,
spk_0
you know, my imagination was just, you know, set off like a fire.
spk_0
And then the house itself was like this Adams family spooky sort of mansion
spk_0
with, you know, old, oriental rugs.
spk_0
It sort of dark and had, you know, it had things like arrowheads,
spk_0
but then it had the Hudson rules, you know,
spk_0
Hudson River paintings.
spk_0
It had a weird big music collection, you know, it was, it was like,
spk_0
it was a cabinet of curiosities.
spk_0
spk_0
And I was a curious guy.
spk_0
I went for it, you know, hookline and sinker.
spk_0
So I think that that's sort of the foundation of some of my time travel.
spk_0
I mean, it makes sense because, you know, you do a lot of works where there are
spk_0
you sort of the impressions of objects, right?
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Which reminds me of the way you're talking about the dinosaur tracks,
spk_0
or like the fossilized, where it's sort of like, you know,
spk_0
where you'll embed them in these stones,
spk_0
or the piece you did at Wave Hill,
spk_0
where you sort of like do the different vegetables or
spk_0
cast.
spk_0
casts that appeal almost like, you know,
spk_0
rosettes or flourishes and other things in the room.
spk_0
You know, that's, that's great.
spk_0
I never, never related those to.
spk_0
I think I think it feels very connected.
spk_0
Yeah, it is very connected.
spk_0
And I, so the idea of something being a tracker, a trace,
spk_0
you know, that is standing for an absence.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
And with dinosaurs, it's very absent.
spk_0
Absolutely.
spk_0
Extinct.
spk_0
Absolutely.
spk_0
But, you know, you can look at any site that way
spk_0
as that, there are traces in some of them are,
spk_0
are no longer there.
spk_0
Some of it is just information that,
spk_0
so one can dig in a site without physically touching it.
spk_0
Absolutely.
spk_0
That's part of my process.
spk_0
But I have time travel at a site.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
And that's what I do.
spk_0
I know that's exactly what you do.
spk_0
That's why I bring that up.
spk_0
I mean, the time traveling.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
You know, it's a habit.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And it's one that, you know, serves me well in my work.
spk_0
You know, sometimes I get these feelings, like, honestly,
spk_0
like, my first major public artwork was the Collect Pond piece.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
First eye in 1990.
spk_0
That's amazing.
spk_0
And, you know,
spk_0
Talking about the hidden history of a site.
spk_0
I mean, we have here in New York,
spk_0
which is the Collect Pond,
spk_0
which used to be around where the tombs are.
spk_0
Yes, exactly.
spk_0
Right there, a court district.
spk_0
Which is the, for those of you who are not from New York,
spk_0
the tombs are where, like, the courts in the prison
spk_0
is in Laura Manhattan.
spk_0
So it's a very symbolic site.
spk_0
Exactly.
spk_0
And you couldn't make this up because,
spk_0
in tombed underneath all that,
spk_0
was a living pond.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
A spring fed major pond,
spk_0
something that was probably half the size of Walden pond
spk_0
and it's deep.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And it's pure.
spk_0
That was just in the way of all that,
spk_0
you know, mercantile, you know, extractive activity.
spk_0
spk_0
And you also mentioned the fact how they sort of made it toxic.
spk_0
Right?
spk_0
It's not like it disappeared out of nowhere.
spk_0
They just literally made it toxic
spk_0
with all the stuff they pour into it, the oils and the whatever.
spk_0
They poisoned their own water, so.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Which is so bizarre, right?
spk_0
It was insane.
spk_0
I mean, you think about who allowed that,
spk_0
you know, what sort of governing body allowed that.
spk_0
But anyways, there's a karma to it.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Because they thought they could maybe develop it
spk_0
as, you know, a new land,
spk_0
and they had this scheme to do it to make it
spk_0
a residential, you know, fancy place called Paradise Square.
spk_0
But, you know, they had neglected to remove the vegetation
spk_0
when they buried it and all of it started to rot and stink.
spk_0
Oh, wow.
spk_0
And sink.
spk_0
So that how the landfill, you know,
spk_0
imagine that all that green just, you know,
spk_0
that, so it became a stinking mess.
spk_0
As did the slow little stream that they turned into a canal
spk_0
that was all, that's how they drained it to the Hudson.
spk_0
And then canal, the canal became smelly.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And they buried it under canal.
spk_0
It became canal street, exactly.
spk_0
But, you know, just the thought of this beautiful pond
spk_0
and wetlands that were, you know,
spk_0
supporting so much diverse life, you know,
spk_0
and was a Lenape site because there was a large
spk_0
mitten on the western shore, you know,
spk_0
where Tribeca is now, a huge mitten,
spk_0
big enough so that the Dutch named it,
spk_0
named that area called Hoke,
spk_0
which meant a shell point or a...
spk_0
Got it.
spk_0
Chalk point.
spk_0
Got it.
spk_0
And they were extracting those shells.
spk_0
I mean, in that case, they just bulldozed them
spk_0
in their, you know, 19th century way.
spk_0
It was part of the landfill, but I think of that.
spk_0
I think there's just, you know, all those oysters.
spk_0
Why?
spk_0
That's a kind of archive down there too,
spk_0
of thousands of years of generations and generations
spk_0
of indigenous people eating and dining on oysters.
spk_0
And shellfish right there.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And even the finger, thinking of the fingerprints,
spk_0
they must have left.
spk_0
They must have the different worlds
spk_0
or the activities that happened around these things.
spk_0
And now, of course, in New York,
spk_0
they're replanting oysters, right?
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
That's sort of ironic, right?
spk_0
Now, it's like there's this big movement
spk_0
to bring in all these millions of oysters to, you know,
spk_0
to what is it?
spk_0
Clean the waters of New York and then turn them
spk_0
to a more natural state.
spk_0
Well, are you familiar with my mitten piece?
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
Okay, so that was a partnership where,
spk_0
you know, I was lucky to collaborate
spk_0
with the Billion Oyster Project.
spk_0
That's the project.
spk_0
There we are.
spk_0
That was the Mama PS1 piece, correct?
spk_0
It's great.
spk_0
spk_0
I mean, you know, one oyster can clean up
spk_0
to 50 gallons of, of politically.
spk_0
This is that crazy.
spk_0
Yeah, it's amazing.
spk_0
So using nature, a nature-based solution
spk_0
is to me as brilliant as it should embrace.
spk_0
And, yeah, so upcoming for me is a project with more art.
spk_0
Nice.
spk_0
So I'm sort of their commissioned artist for next year.
spk_0
And I'm hoping to work again with the Billion Oyster Projects.
spk_0
I have something, another oyster project in mind.
spk_0
I love that.
spk_0
One of the things I like about casting is that it's like,
spk_0
what you see is what you get.
spk_0
It's in many ways,
spk_0
most true form of representation
spk_0
that you can make of a three-dimensional object.
spk_0
Absolutely.
spk_0
So, and I like, sometimes I feel like I'm an advocate
spk_0
or a speaker for things that can't speak.
spk_0
Oh, that's powerful.
spk_0
That's powerful.
spk_0
And also, I think like the casting also,
spk_0
coming back to the notion of time,
spk_0
freezes something in a moment.
spk_0
Absolutely.
spk_0
You know, I'm a fan of this brilliant British psychoanalyst
spk_0
and author, Adam Phillips.
spk_0
And just in passing, at the end of one of these conversations,
spk_0
he just said something like,
spk_0
art monumentalizes life.
spk_0
It stops time and invites space for reflection.
spk_0
Something like that.
spk_0
And I think that's exactly what it does.
spk_0
It's spot on.
spk_0
I think that's really powerful.
spk_0
You also write, you make video.
spk_0
Like, how would you connect these all together
spk_0
in terms of your general artistic practice?
spk_0
How would you characterize that for people?
spk_0
Well, I think that what you pulled out about casting,
spk_0
I'm trying to, within this massive subjectivity
spk_0
that is art, have something that rings true,
spk_0
have something that's, you know,
spk_0
there's a documentary aspect to my work.
spk_0
And yet, there's enough that separates it from fact
spk_0
or the usual forms,
spk_0
it's typical forms of documentary.
spk_0
So I try to, you know, mix that
spk_0
with a lot of formal experimentation
spk_0
and experimentation with materials.
spk_0
In my video work,
spk_0
I'm trying to give videos some thickness, you know.
spk_0
Because it's considered this sort of two-dimensional fanciest.
spk_0
Yeah, well, I would even say texture.
spk_0
That's a better word.
spk_0
Yeah, I feel like there's texture in the video pieces you create
spk_0
that both makes the image more powerful,
spk_0
but also sometimes obstructs it a little bit.
spk_0
Like, there's this kind of, like, almost like a grain.
spk_0
There's a contest, actually.
spk_0
Yeah, I sort of set them into relation.
spk_0
And the relation, it's sometimes,
spk_0
it ends up being, you know, a conversation,
spk_0
but one that maybe one can dry out the other sometimes in it.
spk_0
Like, with the midden piece,
spk_0
I projected extreme panoramic video,
spk_0
like 30 feet by speed or something like that,
spk_0
onto three tons of shells that were laid out
spk_0
in a wet shape.
spk_0
And it was the waterfront.
spk_0
It was at which waterfront was it?
spk_0
It was former really good oyster grounds
spk_0
that was on very polluted Newtown Creek.
spk_0
That was at Newtown Creek, that was, yes.
spk_0
And right up here, actually.
spk_0
Yeah, and the Goannis.
spk_0
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
spk_0
So super fun sites.
spk_0
Super fun sites that were once, you know,
spk_0
beautiful sites of oyster.
spk_0
And those who may not know,
spk_0
Superfung are super polluted sites.
spk_0
The government designates for special funding for cleanup.
spk_0
Yeah, so in the case of the midden,
spk_0
first of all, you can see it from three different levels.
spk_0
Right.
spk_0
So this is in the MoMA PS1,
spk_0
that sort of like that hall kind of atrium space.
spk_0
The hall, a duplex space where there's often only one work,
spk_0
like a large installation work.
spk_0
So from the main floor, you could look down at it,
spk_0
and it was on it flattened out.
spk_0
Because you're looking down.
spk_0
But then as you got to the basement and then sub-basement,
spk_0
and as you got really close to it,
spk_0
I noticed that the video seemed to harden.
spk_0
Yeah.
spk_0
And the shell seemed to liquefy.
spk_0
Interesting.
spk_0
You know what I mean?
spk_0
It's like the sort of flowing colors of the video
spk_0
on the shells made them less hard.
spk_0
But it hardened the video.
spk_0
You know what I mean?
spk_0
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
spk_0
I get that.
spk_0
I used to paint actually that way,
spk_0
where I would cover my canvas with materials
spk_0
that I collected from the site.
spk_0
Could be twigs and little things that leaves and stuff.
spk_0
And I would then paint something
spk_0
that was figurative over that.
spk_0
And so there'd be a little contest.
spk_0
You know, I got that from Kiefer, you know.
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
A contest between the material itself,
spk_0
speaking.
spk_0
Sure.
spk_0
And then the other.
spk_0
And so there's a way in which like the video,
spk_0
even if it's not narrative,
spk_0
has a narrative quality to it.
spk_0
And there's a way in which, you know,
spk_0
shells or turkey feathers are mute,
spk_0
but very expressive of nature.
spk_0
So it changes that there's something
spk_0
declarative maybe about the video
spk_0
and something that's just like a drone
spk_0
about the object that I'm projecting onto.
spk_0
But you know, then I got into things
spk_0
that are a little more complicated
spk_0
like a human face, like George Washington's.
spk_0
Ah, let's talk about that one.
spk_0
But first I just want to clarify for Enselm Kiefer
spk_0
for those who may not know the German artist.
spk_0
Because he works a lot with memory too,
spk_0
which really connects with yours.
spk_0
And I mean, the memory of genocide
spk_0
specifically he often works with, right?
spk_0
Yes.
spk_0
He was an important artist for me
spk_0
when I was moving out of abstraction
spk_0
into figurative work.
spk_0
In fact, he was probably the de-impitous one.
spk_0
He's your bridge.
spk_0
I love that.
spk_0
I love that.
spk_0
So let's talk about this piece
spk_0
because the George Washington bust,
spk_0
I think it's an incredible piece.
spk_0
You bring up the history that in the Mohawk nation,
spk_0
he was called town destroyer.
spk_0
Or is it a Haudenosaunee word?
spk_0
What was it?
spk_0
It would remind me, please.
spk_0
He inherited a title from his grandfather
spk_0
who was the first upon whom the local natives,
spk_0
I think they were Susquehannics that he murdered.
spk_0
So not in Virginia?
spk_0
Yeah, or around that area.
spk_0
There were wars in the late 17th century.
spk_0
I think that it probably translated
spk_0
so differently in all the different nations,
spk_0
dialects and languages.
spk_0
Even at Six Nations, if you listen to my thing,
spk_0
you'll hear different pronunciations of it.
spk_0
I'm going to go on.
spk_0
spk_0
That was the first time that really that I've used the figure
spk_0
in my work.
spk_0
A lot of my work is about what human beings maybe have done.
spk_0
It sort of shows results, but it doesn't show the people.
spk_0
And traces?
spk_0
Yes, traces, exactly.
spk_0
But it's like the part standing for the whole,
spk_0
it's not typically figurative in that way.
spk_0
So that was the first time that I sort of got into that.
spk_0
But this idea of history as a projection,
spk_0
that also occurred to me.
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It's a projection of a fantasy,
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what I would distinguish between history and heritage.
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I think, okay, heritage maybe can be a neutral term.
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The way I'm meaning it, though, it's very inflected history.
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It's very biased history.
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It's sanitized history.
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And so our image of George Washington,
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which is on in our wallets everywhere,
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there's really such an icon to take the liberty of,
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you know, give me liberty.
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That was a step for me.
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And it's not unlike, you know, in a way,
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dealing with the Dalin in front of the museum.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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I see the connection directly.
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And the thing about that Washington pieces,
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again, this term town destroyer,
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it sort of changes our idea.
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And it reminds me when I visited the Seneca nation
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in Western New York,
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sort of like when they talk about JFK,
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they have a whole different history
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from the understanding of mainstream America.
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Right, they see him as negative because he took their land.
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Yes.
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Do you know?
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And it reminded me of that,
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where sort of like Washington
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then becomes this figure that has been transformed.
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Like, you know, no matter what Houdon did,
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you know, and tried to like glamorize him
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into this almost ancient Roman-like figure,
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you've sort of like projected onto him
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this other history, these maps,
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these different traces of violence.
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Yes.
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That have brought up.
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Now, do you think that that piece,
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like how would you connect that
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to your interest in sculpture and space and time?
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I think that in a way,
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the bust is a trace as well.
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Right.
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You know, because it's based on a cast.
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Right.
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But I wanted to just get into this,
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his title, Town Destroyer, a little bit,
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because every subsequent American president
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is known that way.
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Oh, I see.
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So all of them.
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So the name started there,
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but then it sort of...
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Yes, they inherited.
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So that was also prevalent even around New York,
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like there was a Dutch governor named Corlear.
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Corlear's hook was once a place on.
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Of course.
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So all the subsequent governors,
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we called Corlears.
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You're kidding.
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Yeah, so it stuck, you know.
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Right.
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And in the American Revolution,
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the revolutionaries were known as the Bostonian.
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Really?
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Yeah.
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So there was a sort of consolidation
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of these sorts of things.
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And if you think about it,
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I love that because it also pokes into the mythology, right?
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It pokes through it and sort of gets
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to a different perspective.
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Yes.
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Which is what you're kind of work on in general.
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Apologies go ahead.
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Yeah, no, no, that's true.
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This idea of presidents as town destroyers,
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yeah, there have been few that haven't destroyed some towns.
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And that's been turned into sort of this glorious American history.
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But a lot of it is, most of it is pretty bad.
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Yeah, absolutely.
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And even when natives thought
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that was the American Revolution,
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they didn't really get anything.
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Yeah, I mean, the Tess Corura and our onitis,
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some of them sided with the Americans.
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And their land was...
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They were taken as well.
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They were taken as well.
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Yeah.
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I'd love to talk a little bit about place and site,
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which seems to be very important to you.
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It is.
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You know, and what is it about that?
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Is it a positionality?
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Is it, I mean, I know we've talked about landscape
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as being an important part of that.
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But what is it about place that maybe, you know,
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roots you in something or what is it about that idea for you?
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I guess I think of the land as a sort of silent witness.
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And so then if I pull up some things,
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then maybe I'm the mouthpiece around the advocate.
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Totally.
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In silent witness, there's a big tradition in America,
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especially of trees being silent witnesses
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of different kinds of silent witnessing.
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Yes.
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And one of the things that I think about landscape,
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I'd love to hear your sort of thoughts about it,
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but I feel like it's also ties into this false idea
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of the landscape being pristine before Europeans arrived,
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as opposed to natives who are actually crafting the landscape.
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And the landscape itself has its own sort of history
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and power and narrative quality
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that we often don't want to see.
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And I'm curious, is that resonate for you
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or is that the way, how do you approach the landscape
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in different ways?
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Well, again, I get feelings about landscapes.
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And I think that because indigenous culture
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is relational for the native place names,
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they're descriptive.
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But there's some sort of love that I read in those descriptions.
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Like this is the place where the two waters meet.
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Or there's like a mini poem in these.
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And so there's a reverence there.
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And there's a knowledge there, like the knowledge keepers.
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And so I try to be in dialogue with spaces like that.
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Yeah.
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So now we've been having this great conversation.
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Is there anything that we haven't talked about?
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And specifically about the Boston work
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that you'd want to address.
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Do you know?
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Is there something about that?
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Like has maybe even talk a little bit
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about how your relationship to a museum,
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like the MFA has changed over the decades?
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Yeah.
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Well, of course, the first time there was just interest
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on their part was in the Hanadegaia photo series that I did.
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And so they acquired that a few years ago.
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Fortunately, have a indigenous curator there
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for your tech wingo.
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And that's happening more and more
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at major art institutions.
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So it's nice when museums are opening themselves up
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to work like mine.
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And like you say, it's being integrated now.
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It's not like this.
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Oh, let's see.
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Here's the native room.
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Yeah, it's not like that.
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But there are still many shows
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that are group shows are being made.
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We're a native artists are not thought of.
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But it's changing.
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It's starting to change.
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And that's really good.
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I hope that the non-native curators
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will continue to learn about our cultures
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and our artists.
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Because I think that it's important for curators
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to be sort of responding to work very honestly
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and applying the same sorts of critical faculties
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that they would apply to any work.
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And I don't always see that with some of the selections.
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They seem lazy and not in time.
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Depth enough.
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There's better work by some of these artists
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or by different artists that they're not even thinking of.
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So the last thing I want to ask you about is Robert Smithsson.
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Because you have an interesting relationship.
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Bob?
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Yeah.
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Yeah, well, I am drawn to the land.
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And of course, I was drawn to artists
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who were also drawn to the land.
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But there's something.
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It shows some, there's hubris in here.
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Yes.
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What, you don't think you can just change the landscape
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whenever you want?
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Well, exactly.
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OK, so that's it.
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So the sense of entitlement that created the United States
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seems to have empowered these artists.
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So usually, aren't associated with sort of empire or stuff like that.
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But in a way, they disregarded it.
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Well, I mean, isn't that the ultimate privilege
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to be able to ignore it?
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Yes, yes.
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I mean, in a way, it's extractive.
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But I know he's an intriguing artist for me
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because he died trapped.
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He was sort of an Icarus.
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He died in the plane that was looking
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at one of his aerial views of trying to research a site.
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So there's something sort of legendary about him.
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And also, something disturbed, like this brilliant guy
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from this little, you know, track house in New Jersey
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trying to find his way.
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And in a way, I do love some of his work.
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You know, I love spiral jetty.
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It's complicated.
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It is.
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Well, that's what I like.
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I think that's like the sculpture in Boston,
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where it's sort of like you can acknowledge the problem there.
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But you also want to be in conversation with it, right?
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It doesn't feel like a lecture.
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And I think that's why your work works so well.
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It's like there's a conversational quality
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that brings the viewer in.
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Yeah, I believe strongly, and I should tell my students,
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like there has to be some attractor.
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There has to be some sort of magnet
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for people to give your work the time of day.
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Yeah.
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Because, you know, visual art is the most democratic
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of arts, I think, because you can get a lot
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from looking at something.
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That's right, very short time.
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That's right.
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So it's very economical in a way.
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And cross-cultural and all those things
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that language is not.
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Yes.
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And, you know, it has this sort of very compact power
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that can then have large reverberations.
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And unlike performance sort of oriented, you know,
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even musical or theater or performance art,
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you're not stuck.
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You're not like if it's not to your taste, like you're not stuck.
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It's like, I love that about just a sculpture.
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Something that's just mute, it's on the wall or whatever.
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It's like, yeah, okay.
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Totally.
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But it's like, it's...
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And you can consume so much of it.
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Yes.
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Do you know, in a way you can't with books.
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You can't with...
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Exactly.
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You know, you just take it all in and...
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It's promiscuous, isn't it?
spk_0
It really is.
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It's a museum and it's like...
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Totally.
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I'm just like, just too much like I was just recently in Rome.
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And it definitely had that.
spk_0
No, it's like drinking it in.
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It's like that level like a fire hose.
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You know, it's like drinking from a fire hose a little bit.
spk_0
Yes.
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It's like rapture sort of at a certain point.
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Yeah, it's amazing.
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And, you know, it's intense, you know,
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and I think that intensity is part of what draws people to art.
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And it's often lodged in the artists.
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Absolutely.
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Absolutely.
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I love that.
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So my final question is going to be,
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what is the question you hope people think about when they see your work?
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Is there a question that you would like them to think about?
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And obviously, there are probably many questions,
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but I'm just wondering if you could isolate one question
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that you think really sort of gets at some of the ideas you get you talk about.
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And perhaps people sometimes don't maybe see or discuss as much as they should.
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How much is it?
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That's funny, Alan.
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I like that.
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I don't know.
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Well, it fit on my credit card.
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I don't think I've ever been asked that.
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Really?
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No, it's clearly a fantasy.
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OK.
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Next time I see you, I'm going to be like, how much is that, Alan?
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These things come via email, you know,
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so you just open up one day and it's like, Alan.
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Yeah, that's right.
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You know, is this available?
spk_0
Yeah, it's like you start to levitate.
spk_0
Yeah, exactly.
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Exactly.
spk_0
Yeah, so let's see, a question that I would want people to.
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Yeah, maybe conceptual question or something,
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like whether it's about like, you know,
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what is my relationship to this object or perhaps I don't know?
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Yeah, well, I intend my work to be relational.
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Yeah.
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I intend my work to be finished by.
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It's not a brief.
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Yeah.
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It's a set of propositions.
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Right.
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And so I want people to, if they become engaged with it,
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to just go with whatever they want to do.
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Right.
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Yeah, that's all.
spk_0
Love that.
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Well, thank you, Alan.
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It's been a pleasure.
spk_0
And hopefully people will see, knowledge keepers
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will also be part of the Boston art trial.
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Right, which opened which is May.
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May 22nd to the public.
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And I believe that the knowledge keepers
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is going to be up for longer than a year.
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I just heard that that might.
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Woohoo.
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So they acquire it.
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Yeah, it was mid-November.
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Yeah.
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And now it's going to be, I think, more than next November.
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And yes, it would be great if they did.
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Yeah.
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Right cards and letters.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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Everyone sent their energy into the universe.
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But also just being part of the Boston art trial
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and Eosounds really exciting too,
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because it's going to bring a lot of UI balls
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and context for the work.
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Yes, and some really good contemporary native artists,
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Nicholas Klanon.
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Oh, great.
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And the new red order.
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Oh, yeah, amazing always.
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Yeah, it's always.
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It would be great.
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That's great.
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So congratulations.
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And hopefully people will spend their time with it
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and sort of explore all your work.
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Yeah, thanks.
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Thanks so much for listening.
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This episode was edited and produced by Isabella Sagalevich.
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And like all episodes of The Hyperlurgic Podcast,
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it's supported by Hyperlurgic members.
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So if you want to join thousands of other people
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to support the best independent art
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journalism out there telling stories
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no one else is telling, please consider
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becoming a member for only $8 a month or 80 a year.
spk_0
Because Hyperlurgic needs your support
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to ensure that we can continue to bring the stories
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you want to hear.
spk_0
Thanks so much for listening to this episode.
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My name is Hadagvatanyan, Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of Hyperlurgic.
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See you next time.
Topics Covered
dinosaur tracks
indigenous heritage
Alan Michelson
knowledge keepers sculptures
Museum of Fine Arts Boston
Cyrus Dallin
vanishing race myth
public art practice
native warrior sculpture
Boston history
site-specific art
indigenous art
community activism
artistic representation
Northeastern United States