Indigenous Land Relationships Interactive Audio Exhibit

Here is the virtual version of the Indigenous Land Relationships Interactive Audio Exhibit. In the physical world, each topic exists as a different sign placed throughout Duke Gardens. Every sign has a QR code which is linked to a unique story told by an Indigenous person from the Carolinas.

Indigenous Land Relationships in the Carolinas | Duke Gardens

Over the past 500 years, the U.S. and other colonial powers committed genocide in an attempt to steal Indigenous lands and resources.

still\ˈstil \

still\ˈstil \ | Power Plant Gallery

still\ˈstil \ Misconceptions about Indigenous peoples are as prevalent today as ever before.

Misconceptions about Indigenous peoples are as prevalent today as ever before. Mainstream media and inadequate schooling have shaped our lexicon. One of the most prominent examples of this is the use of the word “still”. For example, Indigenous peoples are still here, rather than simply here.  In many ways, still here implies that Indigenous peoples should have disappeared.

In this installation, Quinn Smith of Chickasaw Nation, uses text to challenge common misconceptions about Indigenous peoples through a combination of personal narrative and historical data. The exhibit covers the topics of land, kinship, nation, blood, theft, and genocide. The content within each of these categories overlaps and it none of it exists in isolation.  

By limiting the exhibition to the written word, Smith seeks to deny the continued misuse, acquisition, and sale of Indigenous imagery and artifacts by museums and galleries. The mock dictionary is an opportunity to relearn vocabulary; to read, reckon with and attend to the unsettling personal narrative presented by Smith.