“Each / Other”, at the Peabody Essex Museum, Examines Kinship

“Each / Other”  shares a series of stories about the ties that bind humanity.

The culturally significant exhibit tangibly represents the metaphysical power of art to transcend age, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation.  In all it’s forms, art is an expression of kinship with ‘Each /Other’ and the universe.

By design, the 26 mixed-media installations of ‘Each /Other’ paraphrase emotional and psychological bonds of the human experience. Organized in-part via Zoom, this exhibit honors feelings of empathy between individuals, neighbors and global communities. The dynamic of “Each / Other”  revolves around the multi-focal theme of engagement. The exhibit draws on history, the intimacy of memories, and influences of social structures.

“Each / Other”  does more than affirm sentiments of the here and now. It reminds us experiences of the human-condition transcend time.

The Peabody Essex Museum : Open Thursday, Saturday & Sundays 10-5 pm and Fridays 10-7 pm

Presented at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, through May 8th, “Each / Other ” was organized by the Denver Art Museum, funded with support from private donations, The National Endowment for the Arts and The Native Arts and Culture Foundation.

Working together synergistically for the first time, contemporary Indigenous artists Marie Watt of Portland Oregon and Cannupa Hanska Luger of New Mexico focused their talents on creating statements that emphasize the spirit of social-emotional collaboration.  The core thesis of  this exhibit is to encourage us to wonder about the on-going interconnected power of humanity.

Marie Watt, a Citizen of Seneca Nation believes even the simplest art-form can be a transformative relationship builder. She points to sewing-circles as communes that fuse emotional bonds and serve as repositories of tradition. For her, conversations, like individual stitches, flow onto legendary projects bonding past, present and future generations together.

In a monumental crowd-sourced project, Watt and Luger invited people around the world to stitch a message onto repurposed bandanas. The equivalent of embroidered texts became a commentary on the notion of healing broken bonds with the environment and each other. Fixed to  a 20 X12 X 9 foot ‘She -Wolf’ armature, the ‘text-tiles’  are a metaphor for imaging a morally connected world.

Repurposed bandanas from around the world embroidered with personal sentiments create a monumental “She Wolf”, the Indigenous symbol of animal kinship.

Another of Watt’s cooperatively sourced exhibits makes use of donated blankets to create a softly sculptured riff on the universality of life’s progression. The material narrative is a nod to the Native American tradition of gifting blankets on milestone occasions. Symbolic of how we enter and leave life swaddled, each covering is tagged with a personal story that synergistically weaves together common threads of the human condition.

The skyscraper of blankets tagged with intimate memories stands juxtaposed to an unfinished quilt fashioned with Star Trek deltas. The welcoming space inspires thought on the nexus of past, present and future generational human nature.

The installation of Cannupa Hanska Lugar is emotionally arresting. More than a composite image, it’s a complex and compelling call to social-action. Created by people from hundreds of communities across the United States and Canada, this suspended collection of 4.000 handmade clay beads, represents the lives of 4,000 Indigenous woman, girls, queers, and members of the trans community who are missing or have been murdered. Created in 2018 “Every One”  is an abstract reminder of passive indifference towards “Each / Other”.

The image uses 4000 2 inch clay beads to represent re-humanization of the lives of missing or murdered Indigenous woman, girls and members of the LGBTQ+ community

Prior to 2018, a report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice noted “Indigenous women were murdered at 10 times the national average rate on some reservations in the U.S.”  This crowd-sourced project helped to raise awareness of the need for violence protection in Indigenous communities and beyond.

This exhibit is a thought provoking collection of works with the power to inspire visitors of the PEM to see ‘Each /Other’ with greater awareness of our everlasting, social-emotional global kinship.

“She” thinks this installation is worth visiting.

#EachOtheratPEM