art on the river

Alan Michelson Highlights

g Border-crossing Issues By Kate Morris

Third Bank of the River, 69" x 489", ceramic glass melting

Photo by Cy n th ia F ran k en bu r by Photo colors on glass, 2009. U.S. port of entry, Massena, N.Y.

36 AMERICAN INDIAN winter 2009 art on the river

ast Spring, Mo- hawk artist Alan Michelson stood inside the new U.S. Port of Entry at Massena, N.Y., and watched as a crew of Mohawk iron- workers perma- nently installed his federally commissioned glass artwork Third Bank of the River above the Lpassport checkpoint bays. Third Bank, nearly six feet tall and more than 40 feet long, is a striking medley of four panoramic views of the St. Lawrence River as it forms the border between the and . The title’s reference to three banks of the Alan Michelson Highlights river reflects the unique geography of the international border-crossing at Massena. In Border-crossing Issues the middle of the St. Lawrence, between the By Kate Morris United States and the Canadian mainland, lies Cornwall Island. It is within the interna- tional boundaries of Canada, yet it is also the sovereign territory of the Mohawk Nation. All travelers crossing the border there must traverse Cornwall Island and are for a short time the “guests” of the Akwesasne.

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 37 g Photo by Cy n th ia F ran k en bu r by Photo

Third Bank of the River, housed in the U.S. Port of Entry TwoRow II, 108" x 576", four-channel video with sound, at Massena, N.Y. 13:05 minutes, 2005.

Michelson, 57, is well attuned to the is- landscapes. His first video installation Mespat sues of the borders that divide the Haudeno- (2001), acquired by the National Museum of saunee. He is an enrolled member of the Six the American Indian (NMAI) in 2006, incor- Nations of the Grand River, in Canada, and porated video of three miles of the industrial has many relatives on the Six Nations Reserve. shoreline of Newtown Creek, the severely pol- He was born in Buffalo, , raised in luted stream that divides Brooklyn from Massachusetts and educated in New York City Queens. The video, shot from a boat and then at Columbia College and in Boston at the projected onto a screen of white turkey feath- School of the Museum of Fine Arts. ers, is a haunting, elegiac meditation on both Third Bank is comprised of hundreds of the present and the past, underscored by the photographs that Michelson shot from a boat title Mespat, which means “bad water place” in and digitally joined into glowing, elegant bands the Lenape language. depicting the and New York banks of Today, urban Newtown Creek is part of the St. Lawrence. Michelson also included the Michelson’s own “backyard”; he has lived in shores of Cornwall Island – the “third bank” of Manhattan since 1989. His evocation of the his title – underscoring the presence and par- Lenape language in Mespat pays homage to ticipation of the Mohawk Nation at the “Three New York City’s original inhabitants and is Nations International Crossing.” indicative of the artist’s approach to North The work can be likened to a stained glass American history, in which Native peoples window, but was fabricated by Franz Mayer of are not only represented but are central to the Munich using a modern process in which the narrative. Shot eight years later and 400 miles glass was imprinted with images sandblasted north, Third Bank continues this tradition. through a dot-matrix screen. The U.S. Port of Entry at Massena is one of Probing both geographic and 37 land ports that the Department of Homeland political boundaries, Third Security has built or significantly renovated since Bank is but one in a se- September 2001. Four times the size of their ries of extraordinary predecessors, and decidedly high-tech, their works by Michel- purposes are paradoxical. They must restrict ac- son that has cess, exerting control over people, vehicles and featured rivers goods; yet, according to the U.S. General Services and charted Administration (GSA), which is responsible for A merican I ndian t i o na l Mu se u m f their cul- their design and construction, they must also tural strive to present “a positive federal presence at Alan Michelson the border.” Photo by N a by Photo

38 AMERICAN INDIAN winter 2009 g Al an M ic h e l s o n y o f t es ou r Photo by Cy n th ia F ran k en bu r by Photo c Photo

Shattemuc, 42" x 80", 31-minute HD video, stereo soundtrack with original music by Laura Ortman, 2009.

Plans for a modernized border crossing TwoRow II, Michelson filmed the opposing according to oral tradition, the Haude- station at Massena progressed through a se- banks of a different river – Ontario’s Grand nosaunee entered into a reciprocal pact of non- ries of design competitions sponsored by the River – as it flows through the Six Nations interference with the Dutch. In the metaphoric GSA’s Art and Architecture Program, which Reserve in Ontario. The river holds a dual sig- language of the “Guswhenta” Treaty, the two in the end awarded the commissions to Man- nificance for Michelson, as it defines both his cultures – Native and European – were described hattan-based Michelson and the architectural personal ancestral territory – his grandparents as two vessels traveling down a river on a parallel firm Smith-Miller + Hawkinson. Third Bank were born and raised on the reserve and many course. These vessels, a birchbark canoe and a is situated high on the west wall of the main of his relatives reside there – as well as the col- European ship, represented the laws and customs passenger lobby, facing travelers as they wait lective territory of the Six Nations, promised of each people; the agreement stated that neither in line below to clear their documents. to them by a 1784 proclamation. would impede the other’s progress. The historic The arresting composition – two horizon- By the terms of Great Britain’s Haldimand Two Row Wampum, a woven beaded belt which tal rows of gemlike purple, interspersed with Deed, the Six Nations were awarded a six- formally ratified the agreement and also embod- three horizontal rows of luminous white – can mile tract of land on either side of the Grand ied it in graphic form, represented the two vessels be discerned even from a distance. When River from mouth to source; today the river as parallel purple stripes against a background viewed up close, details emerge, and the purple forms a boundary between the reserve and river of white. Michelson’s TwoRow II reminds bands resolve into a pair of rivers, bordered non-Native townships. In addition to the viewers that the treaties and agreements made top and bottom by trees and the occasional video, Michelson made an audio recording of between Native and European Nations have not bridge, building or factory. Prominent among the non-Native boat captain as he described been honored. Part of the soundtrack details the these monuments are local landmarks such as the history of the river and its people to his loss of nearly 90 percent of the Reserve’s land the Alcoa plant at Massena, a brick-making passengers. Michelson produced a second base promised by the Haldimand Deed. factory and all four anchorages of the Seaway soundtrack, recording stories of the river told While TwoRow II is a meditation on the International Bridge. In Michelson’s unique by Six Nations residents. In the gallery, the two relationship between two nations, Third Bank design, adapted from 19th-century panoramic run simultaneously, competing and conflict- literally pictures three sovereign entities: the maps, river banks mirror one another across ing as narratives, but never quite canceling United States, Canada and the Akwesasne two channels, so that the four shorelines are one another out. As if to further underscore Mohawk Nation. The region where these three alternately right-side up or upside-down. The the degree to which the two cultures – the nations come together has been described as white stripes are expanses of sky – dazzling two sides of the river – are at odds, Michelson one of the most complex international juris- cloudscapes that digitally merge to conjoin set the two video tracks moving in opposite dictions in the Americas. In order to convey the separate, gravity-defying horizons. directions; the Native and the non-Native complexity of this territory, Michelson chose Third Bank recalls Michelson’s earlier, worlds literally run at cross purposes. to navigate the river by boat, photographing four-channel video installation TwoRow II, TwoRow II describes a contemporary reality, the shores from that shifting perspective. first exhibited in the New Tribe: New York yet the evocation of the river as a metaphor for In foregrounding the river in Third Bank, exhibition at NMAI in 2005 and acquired by contact and coexistence is generations old. The and in printing his images on the reflective, the National Gallery of Canada in 2006. For symbolism is said to date back to 1613, when, highly interactive medium of glass, Michel-

SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 39 BORDER CROSSING: MOHAWK FILMS Al an M ic h e l s o n y o f t es ou r Mespat, 20-minute video, turkey feathers, monfilament, steel, stereo soundtrack by Michael J. Schumacher, 2001. Photo c Photo Photo by R ic h ard Hi ll, J r . by Photo

Photograph of historic wampum belt with two-row theme. Date uncertain. (Editor’s note: In spite of recent Iroquois oral tradition cited in the article, evidence for Mohawk-Dutch diplomatic contact as early as 1613 is very much in dispute.) son deftly captures much of the sense of movement and shifting perspective evident in TwoRow II. The artist’s dedication to this point is underscored in a statement he made in an interview in 2005. “[This is] why I make panoramic works,” Michelson said, “because you can’t just take them all in and think you know what you’re seeing. It forces you to look at things from more than one direction and one angle, and to look at life as flux rather than something that you can fix and control.” This then is one of the most crucial aspects of Third Bank: in keeping the river flowing and shifting, in refusing to resolve the

complexities of either the image or the territories it pictures, Michelson’s work keeps the b e ll Tar

border visible, open and navigable. gh an In the months since Third Bank was installed at Massena, Michelson has completed Ida and Uma Meloche, Mohawk a new river-based project, Shattemuc, a thirty-one minute HD video commissioned for y o f R ea residents of Brooklyn, N.Y., during the Tang Museum and Art Gallery’s “Lives of the Hudson” exhibition (on view through t es the heyday of the iron-workers’ Little ou r March 14, 2010 at Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, N.Y.). Once again, Michelson shot Caughnawaga community, profiled in the film by ReaghanT arbell.

video from the perspective of a boat, this time from a former New York City police launch c Photo sailing up the Hudson at night, illuminating the banks of the river in the beam of a marine ohawk ironworkers “booming searchlight. out,” crossing a border between In this mesmerizing work, set to an original musical score by Apache composer Laura home in Canada and work in Ortman, pristine wooded landscape gives way to an increasingly industrial wasteland of the United States, truly made quarries, factories and power plants that pass ghostlike through the light of the grainy theM skyline of New York. The right to cross the beam. While it is tempting to read Shattemuc as an elegy for the river, or for the Native border freely, established in the of peoples who once called the Hudson by that name, it may also point to the uncertain 1794, not only brought construction workers future of any society, past or present, subject to global forces beyond its control. X to New York, it also brought Mohawks on a Kate Morris is assistant professor of art history at Santa Clara University. She writes on topics in contemporary Native art, and is particularly interested in the depiction of landscape in both painting and installation art. long trek across their traditional territories that 40 AMERICAN INDIAN winter 2009 BORDER CROSSING: MOHAWK FILMS

Michael Mavis Dogblood, main Greyeyes and character in Kissed By Kateri Walker,

TK Lightning, played by TK in Kissed by Kateri Walker. Lightning C redi t C redi t

invasion and wars in the 17th and 18th cen- American Film + Video Festival. Adroitly hitting turies, the Mohawks were located mainly in the mark, Deer now has been asked to produce what is now New York State along the middle a comedy series based on this pilot for Canada’s Mohawk River Valley. They also reached north APTN/Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. into the Adirondack Mountains and south Crossing the borders of time with a fresh nearly to Oneonta. Today, the Native viewpoint is the concern of another me- live in communities at Six Nations Reserve dia maker from , digital artist Ska- near Brantford, Ontario; at Kahnawake (for- wennati Tricia Fragnito. Currently co-director merly known as Caughnawaga) near Mon- of the online community Aboriginal Territories treal on the St. Lawrence River; at Kanehsat- in Cyberspace, Fragnito has created an interac- ake in ; at Tyendinega in southeastern tive digital art piece on the Internet that purports Ontario and on the Akwesasne land through to be a web site from the future. TimeTrav- which the international border runs, separat- eller™ presents a virtual world in which ing St. Regis Reservation in upstate New York Hunter Dearhouse, an angry young Mohawk from Akwesasne Reserve in southern Ontario in the 22nd century, teleports himself through and Quebec. They have also spread to many time to revisit historical moments and reframe urban locations, including a famous commu- them from a totally indigenous perspective. It nity in Brooklyn, N.Y. invites the visitor to create the possibility of In the award-winning film Little Caugh- meeting his own ancestor, across the borders nawaga: To Brooklyn and Back, director Reaghan of time and space. Tarbell documents the life of the ironworkers, Fragnito has been part of a team working focusing on the women of her own family and at Kahnawake to conduct a year-long interac- the communities they sustained in New York tive media workshop at the Karihwanoron City and back on the Kahnawake reserve. Like Mohawk Immersion School, a school offering Tarbell, director looks inside the an immersive environment in Mohawk cultural Kahnawake community. In , her lat- studies. Their goal is to increase young people’s est documentary, Deer makes a lively examina- experience of themselves as producers of culture tion of how Mohawk women are affected by Ca- and to help them develop for themselves the nadian law and community membership rules relevance of cultural knowledge. Observing the that limit them should they decide to marry young people’s fascination with video games, men from outside the Reserve. She has turned the planners of the course encouraged them to this dilemma into a hilarious short fictional adapt traditional Mohawk stories of creativity stretch across both sides of the border, the lands film, Escape Hatch, which follows the attempts and heroism into a video world where the unex- in upstate New York from which they had been of one young woman to find romance when pected could happen. separated by the Revolutionary War. non-Mohawk men are “forbidden” and almost The Akwesasne Freedom School, the lon- Today in film and new media, there is a everyone available at home is a cousin. This gest running Mohawk immersion school, was growing world of Mohawk directors and new dilemma is not unique to this reserve but faces founded in 1979 by parents concerned that works on Mohawk lands that illuminate both many who grow up and wish to raise their fami- their children be educated in an environment the borders being crossed and the life of con- lies on their own reservation, as shown by the that focuses students on their community’s temporary Mohawk communities. highly animated response of the audience at the values, practices and language. Producer and Before the dispersal caused by the colonial film’s world premiere in 2009 at NMAI’s Native director Paul Rickard () has specialized SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 41 in documenting how indigenous languages pected results when he tries to fulfill people’s events of the Peacemaker and his spokesman, are being sustained in cultures within Canada wishes with the seeds he plants. Hiawatha, generations before. In a wonderful and internationally. His recent documentary The talented and widely acclaimed Mo- reminder of the arbitrary nature of the inter- Kanien’Keha:Ka/Living the Language shows hawk photographer, painter, media artist and national separation for the Mohawk, a band the work of the school and the families whose film director Shelley Niro has just completed of warriors from the past slips through the children attend. It offers a way to “defend the her feature film debut, Kissed by Lightning. woods. Perhaps they are searching for their territory” by providing meaningful education Starring Kateri Walker, Eric Schweig and people, moved to places like Six Nations. In grounded in the and in Michael Greyeyes, this love story infused by the denouement, Mavis finds a sense of place values held by the community. sadness, focuses on a young Mohawk painter in this expansive Mohawk territory, as well as Seeing that languages are very much en- living on the Six Nations Reserve. The painter success in the world of arts, and a confirma- dangered, but that there are still many adults Mavis Dogblood lives in a state of mourning tion of how to move on to the future. fluent in tongues that the educational system for her prematurely deceased husband, a com- Niro’s film, which premiered in October does not support, a new generation of Native poser and performer on the viola, who told 2009 at imagineNATIVE, is being screened at a filmmakers is experimenting with creating her the stories of the Great Peacemaker, the number of outstanding film festivals, including films “in the language.” One of the liveliest founder of the Haudenosaunee, or the Iro- the American Indian Film Festival in San Fran- of Native film organizations, the imagineNA- quois Confederacy. The film is about Mavis’ cisco and the Santa Fe Film Festival. Niro adds TIVE Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto, return to a fully lived life, but it also evokes a characteristic touch to her story. In this film, launched the Embargo Collective in which a sense of Mohawk history and the grace of- a great-grandmother who knows Mavis’s story topnotch young directors were invited to fered in a return to the aboriginal territories. and family connections advises Mavis to look develop rules for each other to make short When Mavis is invited to show her work in forward to her future. For Niro, the elders are films. The one rule they all had in common New York, she and “Bug” King drive south not looking backwards to past tradition, but are was that all the films had to be in indigenous together. They recognize that they are in the serving as vital links to ongoing history and the languages. Zoe Leigh Hopkins (Heiltsuk/ old Mohawk territories in upstate New York, future. Like the Time Traveller, the ironworker, Mohawk) imaginatively turned to her father, where as Bug says, when you place your feet the young women loving their community and who is fluent in Mohawk, and created Tsi tka- on the ground, you are connected to centuries struggling with its constraints, the challenge of hehtayen (The Garden). The plot hinges on the of past generations. In fact this is the land of borders is to cross them. X major difference that a slightly misunderstood the 17th century Mohawk girl Kateri Tekak- Elizabeth Weatherford is director of theNMAI Film and Video Center. To comment on this article or for more information pronunciation can make when the Gardener, a witha, candidate to be the first indigenous about the films and filmmakers mentioned, go to the FVC good humored trickster, comes up with unex- saint in North America, and of the historical website www.nativenetworks.si.edu.