Andrea Carlson's "Future Cache" exhibit at UMMA imagines decolonized landscapes for the native peoples violently removed from their land

VISUAL ART REVIEW

Andrea Carlson, Sky in the Morning Hours of "Binaakwiiwi-giizis 15, 1900", 2022, gouache on paper. Courtesy of the artist © Andrea Carlson.

Andrea Carlson, Sky in the Morning Hours of "Binaakwiiwi-giizis 15, 1900", 2022, gouache on paper. Courtesy of the artist © Andrea Carlson.

“Gidayaa Anishinaabewakiing / You are on Anishinaabe land”

The title of Andrea Carlson’s multidimensional installation Future Cache at the University of Michigan Museum of Art (UMMA) references the Anishinaabe storage practice of using underground caches to store supplies through the seasons. 

The centerpiece of Future Cache, however, doesn't train your gaze toward the ground but up to the sky.

UMMA's Vertical Gallery has a towering 40-foot-high wall of memorial text. Written by the Burt Lake Tribal Council and presented in Anishinaabemowin (translated by Margaret Noodin and Michael Zimmerman Jr.) and English, the words commemorate the historical and ongoing effects of colonial violence on the Cheboiganing (Burt Lake) Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians.

On the lower level, a cache of Carlson's paintings complements the tower of text with imagined decolonized landscapes, as well as two carefully selected artifacts. Curator Jennifer M. Friess writes in the gallery text that Carlson aims "to draw attention to the theft of Indigenous land and to express solidarity with Indigenous communities on the long journey toward restitution.” 

On the left is the 40-foot-high text wall in Andrea Carlson's Future Cache exhibit at UMMA. On the right is her painting Day Maker.

On the left is the 40-foot-high text Memorial Wall Text (Gaa-ezhiwebag) in Andrea Carlson's Future Cache exhibit at UMMA. You can read the text here. On the right is her painting Day Maker, gouache on paper, 2022. Photograph by Jeri Hollister and Patrick Young, Michigan Imaging.

The Chicago-based Carlson, who is co-founder of the nonprofit arts organization Center for Native Futures, presents her “future cache” at UMMA as an imagined postcolonial time that is rooted firmly in historical fact. In 1855, the Burt Lake Band owned 375 acres of federal “In Trust to the Governor” land. Almost five decades later, these lands were illegally seized, the Band evicted by the local sheriff, and their homes were burned to the ground on October 15, 1900. Since then, the Burt Lake Band received recognition from the State of Michigan in 1985, though they continue to fight for federal status, which has yet to be reaffirmed. 

There are between 20-40 caches near Burt Lake and Douglas Lake, used by the Cheboiganing Burt Lake Band of Chippewa and Ottawa Indians and groups passing through the frequently used channel of lakes. Carlson echoes these caches in her placements of paintings, poems, and historical objects.

Additionally, two large-scale, mixed-media works project “views onto Burt Lake—imaginary decolonized landscapes that nevertheless contain some remnants of the violent realities of displacement,” writes Friess.

Andrea Carlson, I'll Cut a Hole and Future Cache, Oil, acrylic, gouache, ink, marker, and graphite on paper. Photograph by Jeri Hollister and Patrick Young, Michigan Imaging

Andrea Carlson, I'll Cut a Hole (Niwii-waanike) and Future Cache (Asanjigowin), Oil, acrylic, gouache, ink, marker, and graphite on paper. Photograph by Jeri Hollister and Patrick Young, Michigan Imaging.Painting courtesy of the artist © Andrea Carlson.

The two side-by-side landscapes are framed by black-and-white geometric patterns that close around the paintings into the shape of a lens. Carlson describes this as a “portal” you can imagine stepping through to the future space. The scenes at first appear pastoral. Carlson’s large-scale landscape on the right depicts a sandy beach greeting frothy waves and remnants of clothing—the only signs of human activity—scattered on the shore. A closer examination of the work on the left reveals a scene from an unidentified lake with a foreground of large white crosses overlaid with text reading, “GIVE ME KNOWLEDGE SO I MAY HAVE KINDNESS FOR ALL."

What are the origins of this quote?

A quick search reveals it's a “Native American proverb,” with no attribution to a specific tribe or geographic area. In a 2016 article, Native American park ranger Francis X. Guardipee, a member of the Blackfeet Nation, is credited with writing the line. It is part of a longer quote known as “Blackfeet Prayer,” signed by Francis X. Guardipee, Big Lodge Pole. Carlson’s juxtaposition of this modern indigenous prayer written over the white crosses, presumably marking graves, speaks to the continuing impact of settler colonialism. In her recent Penny Stamps lecture, Andrea Carlson: Wholeness in the Future, Carlson noted that she includes this quote because it is found painted on the sign at the entrance to the Burt Lake Cemetery.

An overhead shot of Andrea Carlson's Future Cache exhibit at UMMA.

An overhead shot of Andrea Carlson's Future Cache exhibit at UMMA.  Photograph by Jeri Hollister and Patrick Young, Michigan Imaging.

Carlson chose the two specific artifacts displayed in a glass case from the University of Michigan Museum of Anthropological Archaeology. In turn, these objects inspired the two Carlson paintings, A Selfish Man and Nibi, hanging above the glass case. 

The selected objects are a wooden spoon and a yoke. Little is known about them other than that they were found in Cheboygan County, near Burt Lake, and they were acquired by the museum in 1926. Carlson’s resulting paintings draw inspiration from both Anishinaabe culture and language.

A Selfish Man refers to the “cultural practice of prohibiting men from scraping the remaining food from the bottom of a kettle.” The painting employs a similar formal approach seen in the large landscapes, with a vibrant geometric pattern closing in on a waterscape as if shuttering a lens. In Nibi, the Anishinaabemowin word for water, Carlson further explores the significance of water through the historical yoke, a tool commonly used to carry vessels of water. 

Carlson’s cache also includes poems created for the exhibit that were letterpress printed and framed. Recently, Mark Turcotte presented his poem A Very Distant Drumming at the recent Penny Stamps presentation at the Michigan Theater. Poems by Heid E. Erdrich, Margaret Noodin, and Laura Parkey are also featured. There's an additional framed print titled “Cheboiganing Cemetery” that dates from May 30, 1885 to December 10, 1909. Written here are the names of the people buried where the crosses are in the large landscape painting—the cemetery at Burt Lake.

The speculative futures presented in the exhibit ask viewers to engage meaningfully in the past and present, but a significant text on the gallery wall reminds us that “Oct. 15, 1900 IS NOT THE END."

“We shouldn’t wait for the future," Carlson said in her Penny Stamps talk, "that wholeness is today, and that the future is today, as well.”


Elizabeth Smith is an AADL staff member and is interested in art history and visual culture.


Andrea Carlson's "Future Cache" exhibition is at the University of Michigan Museum of Art through June 2024. Visit umma.umich.org for more information.