The Brooklyn Rail

The Irving Sandler Essay Series
Edited by Alexander Nagel

This essay series, generously supported by Scott Lynn, is named in honor of the art historian and critic Irving Sandler, whose broad spirit was epitomized in the question he would ask, with searching eyes, whenever he met someone or saw someone again: what are you thinking about? A space apart from the press of current events, the Sandler Essay invites artists and writers to reflect on what matters to them now, whether it is current or not, giving a chance for an “oblique contemporary” to come in view.

Today I was at the Humboldt Forum for the first time—first time inside the doors, at least, since I had wandered around the outside of the building on the weekend. It is a strange building, at once a fifteenth-century palace (substantially enlarged in the seventeenth century) and a twenty-first-century simulacrum. The original Schloss had dominated Berlin’s urban landscape for centuries when, a few years after World War II, the artillery-damaged building was pulled down to be replaced by a military parade ground. In the 1970s, the site was occupied by an East German parliamentary building, the Palast der Republik, itself condemned for asbestos contamination shortly before German reunification in 1990. After a long and contentious debate, the federal government—now once again located in Berlin—made the decision to raise public funds to support the rebuilding of the Schloss. It would be the old building made new, but with a difference: while the building would reproduce much of the exterior of the historical palace, its interior would be a modern museum space dedicated to cultural heritage. The collections of the Ethnological Museum of Berlin and the Asian Art Museum would be housed in the rebuilt palace, now bearing the name of the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and his brother, the linguist and philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt.

I had been looking forward to this visit for a long time, ever since hearing about the plans to install materials from Berlin’s ethnological collections in the rebuilt Schloss. What would it be like to visit belongings from Indigenous communities, acquired and interpreted within the scientific framework of the nineteenth century, as they reside within this space of layered history—urban history, Prussian history, German history? I went directly to the “Amerika” galleries, which are on the second floor, along with the “Afrika” galleries.

The first space you come into consists of the Pacific Northwest galleries, focused specifically on the Haida Gwaii. This is a good choice—that is, the specificity—because it invites you to learn about and encounter people from one particular community, instead of some general view of Indigenous people. The space opens with language, including an enormous wall with many, many different names for wood: specific tree names, like cedar; parts of trees, like bast or bark; standing trees, full-grown trees, long thin branches, woven cedar-root rope. Their names are in Secwépemc and Heiltsuk, Lummi and Samish, Salish and Haida. The shadowy letters—some light gray, some darker gray—trace the shape of a tree and its branches.

Collaborations with Indigenous curators at Saahlinda Naay (Haida Gwaii Museum) have made this a meaningful space that begins with language and land, drawing the visitor into a relationship with cedar (red and yellow, both present as blocks you can heft in your hand, and wood shavings you can smell). All this comes long before the objects come into sight, presented as belongings—each itself embedded in a set of relationships—and as relatives. I could almost smell the scent of smudging and feel the loving, careful preparation that must have gone into the placement of these spirit beings, these belongings, on the shelves.

By contrast, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art last year, I saw some masks from the Pacific Northwest on display. It made me uncomfortable to see them; there was none of this careful preparation, this loving care. I was also reminded, in a good way, of my visit last year to the beautiful spaces of the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center in Albuquerque, which calls itself “the Gateway to the 19 Pueblos of New Mexico.” Encouraged by a friend whose family is Pueblo of Isleta, I visited there in April 2022, and was struck by the way the museum space expresses the different perspectives and intentions of the various pueblos, especially with regard to language. Recordings of Pueblo languages were limited by the protocols of each individual community—some more accessible to the public, some less. The nearby language wall, though, presented a more expansive view: on it were written the words for different family members—mother, aunt, grandmother; uncle on the mother’s side, uncle on the father’s side; and so on—in all the languages of the nineteen pueblos. Each word was on a separate leaf, and the leaves all made up one tree. I took a photo of it when I was there last year, and shared it in the Lunaape (Munsee-Delaware) language class I was attending, where we had been working through the various names for family members that very week.

The Pacific Northwest galleries at the Humboldt Forum move from language and land, through cedar’s weight and scent, to belongings lovingly placed on the shelves. There is also a totem pole, possibly made for presentation or sale rather than for a private, sacred purpose. For the first time, I could see the visual logic of the totem pole, not because it was explicated on the museum label, but because the space itself taught me how to look at it correctly. I could see animal upon animal, animal upon person, person upon animal, rising up in a kind of prayer, a reaching to the sky. For the first time, I could see the relationships between Pacific Northwest art and belongings from Mexico and Mesoamerica, where vertical movement signifies in a similar way—pressing downward on an enemy, or upward toward the heavens.

Finally, the Pacific Northwest galleries also speak to us about the political, both directly and indirectly. I passed large-scale photographs of Indigenous protesters rising up against the Canadian and American governments, seeking to protect land; T-shirts on the wall beside them translated their physical actions into political statements. This was direct action, direct statement; in the next room, however, the message was translated into visual narrative, through a beautiful and complex manga-style piece of wall art by an artist of mixed Haida and Norwegian descent, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. Standing there, I began to perceive how the vertical movement of the totem pole had been translated into the horizontal movement of the manga panels, the history of the people transposed from an upward reach to an expansive gesture.

In between the experience of the totem pole and that of the manga panels, I saw an astonishing set of power boards. These are panels of wood that are fastened together, one on top of the other, to be used in ceremonial dances. Behind the dancers, the panels slowly rise up as one power board is fastened to the next. Imagine it! The power of the dance is translated into a slow ascent upward into the heavens, as the combination of the dancers’ spirit and the spirit gathered there—the witnesses, the ancestors, all living things present there—moves together in one direction. It was extraordinary to imagine, sitting there before the array of power boards, standing like trees in a grove; and must be so much more extraordinary to witness, at the time of the dance.

As I sat there before the power boards, I was not alone. As I walked through the Pacific Northwest galleries, I had been thinking of Lee Maracle, a mother and grandmother, teacher and friend, activist and writer, teacher and Siya:m (traditional leader) to her Stó:lō Nation. She passed in November 2021. I was reflecting on how much she would have loved to visit this space, and imagining comments she would have made, happy to see this wonderful work. She would have pointed out the exquisite monumental glass plate made by Coast Salish artist Susan Point: four faces gathered in a circle around the salmon and the raven, swirling about the still point at the center. Seeing the young warriors, their faces painted with red and black, protesting the Canadian government, she would have raised her fist and said “Right on!” When I came to the power boards in the next room, I had to sit down, because I felt her presence so much.

As I sat there thinking about the power boards—and having the strange experience of them seeming to change as I looked at them; it was a little scary—I was remembering the beautiful images of cedars in the previous room. In particular, I was thinking of the lush green hills of cedar that tumble down to the ocean, with the bare bones of fallen cedar boughs and trunks lining the water’s edge. I had seen such things before, not just on video (as in the wonderful film of Haida artist Jaalen Edenshaw, featured in the Humboldt Forum’s opening gallery), but in my own body, having found my way to a beach at the edge of the campus of the University of British Columbia in August 2016.

While I had visited UBC before, I had never ventured to the edge of campus on the seashore. I had also almost never seen the Pacific, except for a brief look when I was at Santa Cruz, and had never dipped my toes in the water, so during a break in the conference I grabbed a campus map and headed to one of the marked paths down to the beach. The way you approach the beach is totally different from the sandy Atlantic beaches I know: instead, you descend steep green pathways down a hill, lined by trees and abundant foliage all the way. And on the shore, there are lots of logs, from the trees that once stood on the hillside and tumbled down. And the water, too, feels and smells different. It was very disorienting, familiar in a sense but also deeply strange.

Once I made it down to the shoreline, I learned from some helpful signage that this was also the local nude beach. Well, I thought, that’s fine, whatever. I have two hours until the next session, and that’s not enough time to get to any of the other beaches. And the beach was pretty empty, because it was around high tide and early in the day. I took off my shoes to walk down to the water, keeping my eyes to myself. And once I had my toes in the water it was lovely, and I thought—why not? No one I know will see me; no one will ever know. I left my clothes in a little pile on the beach, and went swimming.

It was the most intoxicating experience. I love the water, and the ocean in particular; this time, though, it was a different kind of experience, both an enormous pleasure in this beautiful natural space, with the deep blue water, deep green foliage, and white mountains in the distance, and also the pleasure of—I think for the very first time, at least since childhood—feeling at home in my own skin. I think it was the knowledge that no one I knew could see me that made it possible; I would never in a million years have done that, for example, if I had come to the beach with a friend.

And the neat thing is that something of the experience stayed with me. The irony is not lost upon me that it is only now, very late in life, that I feel comfortable in my own skin in a way that was impossible when I was young. I think that, to some extent, this is an experience that a lot of women have: they only grow into a sense of confidence, including bodily confidence, later on. But for me, that whole dynamic was exacerbated by early bad experiences, which take a long time to undo.

That moment on that beach in August 2016 was a bead on a string, an important moment within a series of moments that link past and present. These moments (I was thinking, as I sat there in the Humboldt Forum with Lee) were each a preparation for the next. Working to save the University of Toronto’s Back Campus from being paved over, in January to June 2013, brought me into relationship with that land, and especially with the waters running below it; the experience gave me skills that I would be able to use later on. In August 2016, I immersed myself in the waters at the edge of the Pacific Northwest, tumbled cedars and lush green leaves at my back, blue ocean at my feet and extending to the horizon, where mountains could just be glimpsed. On my way home, I stopped off at my mother’s house, which is on Lenape land, and got reacquainted with the rivers I used to love. The next year, I met Lee, and learned how to join a talking circle. Then my path wound back to the land where I grew up, Lunaapahkiing, where I live and work now. And today I was in Berlin, on a research trip to visit Munsee-Delaware wampum belts in the museum’s storage facility, but instead found myself in the Humboldt Forum—or was I on the shoreline?—intoxicated by the scent of cedar.

The following gallery was dedicated to the Umoⁿhoⁿ (Omaha) people, and in particular the collection of the nineteenth-century Umoⁿhoⁿ ethnologist Francis La Flesche. The one thing I want to mention about this space is the way the speaking panels in the Umoⁿhoⁿ gallery struck me. No one else was in the room, so I was alone with the speaking panels—flat, tall video screens, each one in turn offering up voice and image. Standing before the panels, listening to those present-day Umoⁿhoⁿ people willing to share their stories—especially their experiences of residential schools—I suddenly realized that I wasn’t alone in the room. The panels were placed along the edge of a circle, and the spaces between the panels were benches. If the circle didn’t go all the way around the room, due to the shape of the building, there were little curved benches here and there to suggest where those edges of the circle might be. I sat down beside the last panel, making myself at home in the circle. I was alone there, physically, but spiritually, I was in company. I look forward to visiting again.

Coming out of that space, suddenly the galleries were—the usual. Piles of stuff, placed on shelves like books, or toys, or cans of soup in the supermarket. The Humboldt Forum recognizes this: there are signs to say, we want to work on these collections with Indigenous communities! And I believe they probably do. But boy it was hard to see all that stuff…. I saw quillwork and beadwork, and didn’t have the heart to take photos to send to friends who might be inspired by them; it was too sad to see them piled up, bunches of beaded pouches here, piles of quill-decorated moccasins there. I moved quickly past the shelves of things.

Suddenly I overheard a voice speaking in English with a northern Midwest accent, and realized there was a man speaking with a curator about belongings—namely, his Blackfeet (Amsskapipiikunniwa) relatives sitting upon the shelf. I wanted to listen too, but I didn’t want to intrude or be rude, so I stayed a little distance away, catching a couple of words here and there. Then I noticed a beading table: not with regular beads, but puffy plastic beads, placed in a large container, with three stations around the table and a curved bench. An elderly man was sitting there, stringing puffy plastic beads; he was part of the Blackfeet group, but maybe tired (I imagined) and wanting to sit down for a bit. I sat down beside him and started stringing beads. It took me a little while to figure out how the beading station worked; there were thin strands of plastic wire, strung like a guitar, along which you could line up the beads. The string that would hold the beads was frayed, and I had to twist and turn the string’s end in my fingertips each time I would add a new pair of beads.

Then the whole Blackfeet group sat down beside us: the man who had been speaking with the curator, and their family and friends. A few of them were speaking an eastern European language (Polish, maybe?), and it was clear that they were on a trip that was partly for pleasure; they talked about making time to see the portraits in the other museums nearby. The conversation with the curator was productive, and the man who had been speaking with him said this: “It may take a while, and you may be gone by then, and me too, but other people will carry this all onward, and something will get done.” The curator had said that his contract was running out at the end of the month, and the man seemed to doubt that he would be in the group of people who would come to visit these belongings next time; but there was no doubt that the belongings would get visited, and the red pipe they had been discussing (so different from the usual, later black pipes!) would be with its relatives again at last.

As the conversation with the curator and among the group drew to a close, one of the women mentioned what time it was. I realized I should be going, finished a few more beads, and then stood up to go. The display said “please clear up before you leave,” but what I had made was not one person’s work, to be beaded and then undone; it would be better if someone else were to come along and continue the pattern. I left the beading half-made, the way it was. And as I stood up to go, the elderly man I had been sitting with all that time stopped me to say I should take a photo of the beading, to remember it.