Opening Reception: ‘A Moment of Our Time’ – An America 250 Response Group Shinnecock Art Exhibit

As the United States commemorates 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, A Moment of Our Time: A Shinnecock Response to America 250 considers that anniversary from a distinctly Shinnecock perspective. For the Shinnecock Nation, 1776 does not mark the beginning of history on this land. Shinnecock people have maintained relationships with the lands and waters of eastern Long Island and Turtle Island for more than 10,000 years. Seen within that much longer continuum, the founding of the United States becomes not an origin point, but one consequential moment within an enduring Indigenous history. A Moment of Our Time brings together Shinnecock artists to consider what the American Revolution, the Declaration of Independence, and the development of the United States have meant for Indigenous communities whose homelands preceded the nation itself. Rather than treating the 250th anniversary solely as an occasion for celebration, the exhibition creates space for reflection on occupation, colonization, land, military service, cultural survival, family memory, sovereignty, and the continuing effects of American history on Shinnecock life today. The works approach these histories through personal as well as collective experience. Some artists turn toward Shinnecock veterans and family histories of military service; others consider the transformation and occupation of Indigenous homelands, the pressures placed upon cultural traditions, relationships with the land and water, and the persistence of Shinnecock identity across generations. Together, these perspectives complicate familiar narratives of American independence by asking whose independence was being declared, whose lands made the new nation possible, and how Indigenous peoples continued to endure, adapt, create, and assert their presence throughout the centuries that followed. The title A Moment of Our Time deliberately changes the scale through which the anniversary is understood. Two hundred and fifty years may represent a major milestone in the history of the United States, but within the much longer history of Shinnecock people, it is only a moment. The exhibition centers the voices of living Shinnecock artists not as figures outside or in the past of American history, but as contemporary people actively interpreting its consequences and determining how their own histories are remembered and carried forward. Featured artists are Melissa Allan, Jeremy Dennis, Kelly Dennis, Durrell Hunter, David Bunn Martine, Tracey Pace, Eli Philips, Heather Rogers, Madeleine Rogers, Denise Silva-Dennis, Nadonis Tarrant, Adrienne Terry, Christian Weaver, and Nashota Williams. A Moment of Our Time: A Shinnecock Response to America 250 is organized by Ma’s House & BIPOC Art Studio, Inc. and is made possible with support from the Robert D. L. Gardiner Foundation, whose support helps make the participation and creation of new work by Shinnecock artists possible.