blvd. | arts
Planting possibility A DAVIDSON COLLEGE ART INSTALLATION ENCOURAGES CONVERSATION ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE CATAWBA NATION’S ANCESTRAL LAND — AND REINTRODUCES AN ANCIENT CROP.
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ast November, the shape of President Andrew Jackson sitting astride a horse was dug into the dirt close to the corner of Griffith and Main streets in downtown Davidson. The hollowed silhouette was the first element of “Unshadowed Land,” a yearlong immersive art installation led by Tlingit and Unangax̂ (indigenous people from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska) artist Nicholas Galanin. The excavation, adjacent to Davidson College’s Katherine and Tom Belk Visual Arts Center, mimicks the bronze statue in Washington D.C.’s Lafayette Square. The statue was erected in 1853 as a tribute to the seventh president of the United States, who was born in the Waxhaws, a region between the Carolinas. In recent years, people have contested the statue, asking for it to be removed because of Jackson’s decision to sign the Indian Removal Act in 1830, which led to the march known as the Trail of Tears. The monument still stands even after protesters attempted to bring it down last year. Galanin is known for “Shadow on the Land,” a 2020 archeological excavation based on the shadow of the Captain James Cook statue in Australia. Like “Unshadowed Land,” the work explores the effects of settler colonization. The current installation is the next iteration, 26
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a generative piece that focuses on the strengths of the indigenous communities and is a testament to their resiliency, Galanin says. “We have no shortage of colonial monuments,” he says. “Not all these histories represent heroes to a large amount of the community.” Due to Covid restrictions, Galanin couldn’t travel to and from his home in Alaska to supervise the installation of “Unshadowed Land.” He supplied the concept and the imagery. The Davidson College community partnered with the Catawba Nation to implement the steps. In November, Galanin’s templates, all to the scale of the original Jackson statue, were used to cut the shape into the ground. The intention of the outdoor installation is to encourage conversation and questions about the history of the Catawba Nation’s ancestral land, which once stretched from Morganton to Rock Hill, S.C., including where Davidson College stands. “Unshadowed Land” is a response to the research of the college’s past and its treatment of the indigenous people who lived on the land. “Indigenous communities across the globe deal with a lot of similar forms of oppression, from displacement to loss of language, assimilation,” Galanin says. “We’re also fighting for access to our land, our relationship to that land through hunting and fishing.” DeLesslin George-Warren or “Roo,” had worked with Davidson
PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTOPHER RECORD, DAVIDSON COLLEGE
by Vanessa Infanzon
