Acknowledgment of Place
Where are you now?
What was the earth like below this building four hundred years ago?
What will this place be like in the future?
Who has been here before you?
When I began curating Boundless, I traveled from Minnesota to Amherst. I found myself in a new place, so I followed Ojibwe protocols for entering another culture group’s homeland. In curating the exhibition, I was enacting a kind of foraging or gathering as I selected from the published histories and works by current artists of their cultures. I explained to the Indigenous people I met here that I had come to work on Boundless and I asked permission to gather on their grounds. I brought gifts with me and offered them.
I did so because that is what we do and because place—not only land, but water—matters.
In the spirit of acknowledgment, I ask you to take a moment to consider how place matters to you.
In the spirit of acknowledgment, I ask you to consider how place is important to the words and works in Boundless today.
—Heid E. Erdrich (Ojibwe), Guest Curator and Writer
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