HERE AND NOW at Museum Ludwig. De/Collecting Memories from Turtle Island

Memories are fragile things. We collect them, pass them on, overlay or efface them. Focusing on the processes of memory, the new project in our exhibition series HERE AND NOW questions Western pictorial constructions so to render repressed Indigenous narratives visible.

The centerpiece of the exhibition is the installation Thirteen Moons by contemporary artist and member of the Seneca Nation, Marie Watt (b. 1967 in Seattle). Her work of thirteen hanging sculptures made of tin creates a cloud of sound when touched. It is a tribute to the Jingle Dress Dance, a healing ritual of the Ojibwe tribe initiated during the influenza pandemic in 1918–20 and passed down from one generation to the next despite being banned by the state—a radical act of resistance.

Watt’s work appears alongside historical photochromes from the museum’s collection, published by the Detroit Photographic Company. around 1900. These mass-produced postcard images depict modern cities and deserted landscapes of the United States: representations of a land in which Indigenous peoples are deliberately omitted, although this supposedly unspoiled natural environment to be claimed is their home. The juxtaposition with Watt’s sculptures shows how history is constructed and what is left out. The artist will collaborate with Jingle dress dancer Acosia Red Elk for the exhibition.

Curators: Miriam Szwast und Santi Grunewald