In August of 2023, Seneca Artist Marie Watt began constructing her large neon sculpture Chords to Other Chords (Relative) at The Center for Native Arts & Cultures (The Center).
The installation is a large-scale sculpture with the words “Turtle Island And” spelled out in neon, with the letters mounted on a plywood structure that has been pasted with posters, stickers, flyers, newspaper articles and other print pieces collected from the Native community.
According to Marie, the neon text is meant to “blaze like a sunrise.”
The title is from the 23rd United States Poet Laureate Joy Harjo’s poem Bird, which reads “We are chords/to other chords to other chords, if we’re lucky, to melody.”
On August 25, 2023 Native Arts & Cultures Foundation (NACF) partnered with Converge 45 for the opening reception of Marie Watt’s Chords to Other Chords (Relative). Over 250 people gathered at The Center to view the billboard-sized work. This event was part of the Converge 45 biennial in Portland, Oregon, Social Forms: Art as Global Citizenship.
“This project is an affirmation of the land and the Indigenous people who are ephemeral monuments to this territory,” says Marie. “It is a way of seeing ourselves in public places that have ties to our ancestors and to future generations.”
The work builds upon Seneca oral history traditions and the history of call and response. Conversations are intended to call back in time to our ancestors and also forward to future generations, based on the belief that our present moment is inextricably tethered to the communities of past and future.
Marie says the sculpture demonstrates “our relatedness, reverberating and expanding beyond the individual to empower and embrace the many. This work builds upon Seneca oral history traditions and the history of call and response. Conversations are intended to call back in time to our ancestors and also forward to future generations, based on the belief that our present moment is inextricably tethered to the communities of past and future.”
In November of 2023, Marie Watt was the recipient of the SHIFT – Transformative Change and Indigenous Arts award from NACF. For her SHIFT Project Marie is partnered with the Forge Project to create a series of three site-responsive neon sculptures that aim to amplify stories and conversations about land, stewardship, and place. Events will feature poets, artists, scholars, and other thought leaders in conversation with the themes of Turtle Island.
Watch this Artist Talk with Marie Watt at The Center
This exhibit took place from August 24th – October 15th, 2023
Read Marie Watt’s interview with Bomb Magazine.