Reservation X: The Power of Place

Press Release

Native American artists explore community and identity through multimedia installations

Hanover, NH—The connection between Native contemporary artists and their community environments is dramatically embodied in an important exhibition, Reservation X: The Power of Place. On view at the Hood Museum of Art from October 6 through December 16, 2001, Reservation X features multimedia installations by seven Native American artists from the United States and Canada that explore the effects of mainstream culture on Native American identities.

Erasmus by DurerOrganized by the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Hull, Quebec, Reservation X investigates the complex relationship between community and identity through seven large-scale art installations that make innovative use of photography, film, audio recordings, CD-ROM, sculpture, and painting. The featured artists are Mary Longman (Saulteaux), Nora Naranjo-Morse (Tewa), Marianne Nicolson (Kwakwaka'wakw), Shelley Niro (Mohawk), Jolene Rickard (Tuscarora), Mateo Romero (Tewa), and C. Maxx Stevens (Seminole). Through their individual creations, these artists generate a collective commentary on the power of place and the realities of everyday life for religious and racial minorities. Although their ideas of and experiences with community reflect very different perspectives, all of these artists recognize their affinities with a Native American identity and rely upon the power of art to express them.

The exhibition opens Saturday, October 6 with a lecture by artist Jolene Rickard at 4:30 PM in the Arthur M. Loew Auditorium. A reception will immediately follow hosted by the Friends of Hopkins Center and Hood Museum of Art.

Reservation X has received national recognition for its creativity and thought-provoking content. The New York Times touts the exhibition as "a lean, clean contemporary take on the tangled subject of what it means to be Indian in America today." Sculpture Magazine wrote, "No other exhibition has so clarified the profound role installation can play as a form of cultural communication when it is severed from the merely personal. In 'Reservation X,' Native American reality is never presented in an exhibitionistic or self-indulgent fashion: the self as defined by Western culture doesn't enter into play. Instead, the difficult issues of family disruption, cultural colonialism, loss of roots, and displacement are made visible in a deeply straightforward fashion."

"The Hood Museum of Art is both proud and excited to host 'Reservation X: The Power of Place,'" said Derrick Cartwright, the director of the museum. "The seven powerful installations that make up this exhibition will certainly challenge all of us to think more deeply, not just about contemporary art practices—although they will surely do that—but also about the history of Native peoples in the United States and Canada. Dartmouth College has played a complex role in that history and the community here should be especially interested in this project for that reason." This year marks thirty years since the college's re-dedication to the education of Native American students.

(Group portrait by Julia Smith, photographer. Courtesy National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution.)
(c) Hood Museum of Art All images are for personal education use only. All rights to the reproduction of these images are reserved. Images may not be reproduced in any format without prior approval of the Hood Museum of Art.