“The immediate objects are the total destruction and devastation of their settlements, and the capture of as many prisoners of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground and prevent their planting more[…] parties should be detached to lay waste all the settlements around, with instructions to do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but destroyed.” -Orders of George Washington to General John Sullivan regarding the Iroquois, May 31, 1779
Right now on the wall inside the Frye Museum sits a Native American hand drum in a display case. Nicolas Galanin, a Tlingit/Aleut artist, skinned the drum with the American flag. In front of the drum, instead of a drumstick, is a wooden police baton.
The piece made me laugh and shudder at the same time.
Galanin was one of the three artists over the weekend who sat down for a public discussion about Your Feast Has Ended, the brilliant show currently on display at the Frye that he, along with Maikoiyo Alley-Barnes and Nep Sidhu, worked together to create. Feast offers up a harsh critique of American imperialism, racism and injustice with work that somehow simultaneously manages to have a sense of humor and transcendence despite the inherent horror of the past it wrestles with. Another of Galanin’s pieces, a pair of tiny engraved handcuffs behind glass, is entitled “Indian Children’s Bracelets.”
“People have come to the show and told me they left offended because of pieces like Indian Children’s Bracelets,” Galanin said into the microphone during the discussion, “but the thing is, handcuffs like those really were used historically on Native children.”
During the final Q&A section of the discussion, a woman in the audience stood up to ask a question.
“As someone who was born a white person, born into the bloodline of the opressor, this show was really hard for me to walk through. What should I do?”
After everyone took a wide-eyed moment to think to themselves, “did she really just ask that?” the three aritsts on stage clamored for the mic.
“If you are asking us how to fix white people, we don’t have the answer, and that’s not really our job” Maikoyo Alley-Barnes said. “You’ve got to figure that out for yourselves.”
Above: Indian Children’s Bracelets, by Nicholas Galanin
I love Washington State. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be in the world than Seattle, WA, a naturally beautiful city full of people who seem to be unstoppably creative, innovative, progressive, and engaged in the world around them. Whenever I leave this place, I always rejoice upon my return.
Washington State’s flag, however, is really stupid.
