“This Land Calls Us Home” Exhibition Review
Published August 21st
By Tamara Smithers
Grounded. For most folks moving through the concourses at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), this is not something one wants to think about... However, an exhibition in the T North Terminal evokes profound meaning about the land upon which we stand. “This Land Calls Us Home: Indigenous Relationship with Southeastern Homelands” conjures ideas of resilience and the desire to return to and protect ancestral homelands.
The rotating exhibit installed in the display cases since November 6, 2023 showcases more than 60 works by 26 different artists and designers who belong to Native American tribes from the Southeast. It groups works into subthemes: Heritage & Legacies underscoring the continuum of the past, present, and future; Communication & Expression focusing on the importance of language, oral traditions and storytelling; Nature & Nurture expressing communal ideas of creation, existence, and the cyclical nature of life and its resilience; Community & Autonomy emphasizing the effects of forced assimilation and the right of tribal sovereignty; and Identity & Diversity highlighting individualism in an effort to eradicate harmful stereotypes that have been in place for over a century.
Luzene Hill (Cherokee), a multimedia artist with several illustrations in the exhibition, was born in Atlanta, GA but now lives in the Qualla Boundary of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians in Cherokee, NC (1). She commented on the significance of this installation and other similar ones in the US: “I hope this, and other exhibitions around the country [US] – like the … landmark show at the National Gallery of Art, “The Land Carries Our Ancestors,” and several recent exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring contemporary Indigenous artists, will bring greater awareness of our culture, not to mention our mere existence! I feel it’s an important milestone that Indigenous artists are at last being shown in mainstream museums and galleries – as contemporary, living people, creating complex and varied art”(2).
Figure 2.) “This Land Calls Us Home” exhibition, T North Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). Photo: Courtesy of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
The site of the exhibition in Atlanta occupies the unceded land of the Muscogee/ Muskogee (Creek) and Cherokee. Before the forced removal of Native American families from the Southeast by Andrew Jackson in the 1830s, dozens of other Woodland tribes traveled through and traded in the region. As one of many systemic, unrighteous undertakings instituted by the US Government against Native peoples, the Indian Removal Act sought to disempower and eradicate Indigenous communities. Against all odds some groups remained behind. The majority of tribes—comprising an estimated 100,000 men, women, and children—were herded and marched, or were transported like livestock, to Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Although they could only bring what they could carry, some ceramic potters collected, carried, and protected a handful of clay from the homeland before they were forced to traverse the arduous 5,000-mile path, now called Trail of Tears. Land holds meaning: future use of the clay, likely mixed in the temper of communal vessels, allowed the community to always have a piece of their homeland. When speaking on the matter, exhibiting artist Dustin Mater (Chickasaw Nation tribal member and of Choctaw and Muscogee heritage) who lives in Oklahoma, articulated, “Homeland is on my mind daily.” He continued that the exhibition “… open[s] a conversation with an audience who may have never heard of the Chickasaws or even interacted with an Indigenous person. It is a wonderful opportunity to share a part of our story with the world" (3).
Figure 3.) “This Land Calls Us Home” exhibition, T North Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). Photo: Courtesy of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
Rev. Chebon Kernell (Seminole/ Muscogee), who developed the exhibition and oversees Native American programs at the Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church, noted: tens of thousands of visitors will see it daily. Like many large airports, ATL hosts a robust art program of curated installations and commissioned works. With over 1,000 artworks, it is one of the largest public art sites in the Southeastern US. Chief Executive of Global Ministries, Roland Fernandes, stated, “The installation offers a unique opportunity to help facilitate a greater understanding of Native American and Indigenous peoples of the Southeast. Many of the artists have close ties to specific ancestral sites now in the Greater Atlanta and Georgia region, which may also be of special interest to travelers visiting the Atlanta area” (4).
Figure 4.) “This Land Calls Us Home” exhibition, T North Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). Photo: Courtesy of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
Although some travelers might rush by in an effort to make their connection, this particular installation does what any good art exhibition should do: make one think. And apropos to travel: it emphasizes the importance of not where one is going, but instead, where one originates. While the artwork in the displays reveal a variety of personal expressions of individual artists, it reflects collective thinking, evoking the motives behind several universal Indigenous grassroots movements such as “Land Back” and “Water is Life.” Advocates protest for return of ancestral lands to Native tribes and work to protect essential natural resources, such as waterways. Many Native groups in the United States today are still fighting for basic human rights such as clean water and ownership, or even access, to the locations of their people’s creation story.
Importantly, as the official exhibition website relays, the exhibiting artists call through their work a “return to their origins, spiritually and literally, to reconstruct an identity fragmented by history” (5). Cherokee National Treasure for basket weaving Vivian Garner Cottrell, who has two pieces on display in the show, elaborates, “Talking with visitors to the country [US], they think that the Indigenous people are no longer here. When they see the exhibit, I think they’ll take away that we’re still here. We’re still practicing our culture and still have our knowledge of our ways continuing” (6). With this exhibition, the artists jointly say, “We want people to know that Native peoples are here today” (7).
Figure 5.) “This Land Calls Us Home” exhibition, T North Terminal at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL). Photo: Courtesy of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport
The exhibition is presented by General Board of Global Ministries of The United Methodist Church. View individual artworks and learn more about exhibiting artists here.
Tamara Smithers received her PhD from Temple University and is Professor of Art History at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN where she teaches a course on Native American visual culture. As a scholar of the early modern period in Italy, her publications range from an academic monograph entitled The Cults of Michelangelo and Raphael: Artistic Sainthood and Memorials as a Second Life to a student-friendly, open-resource essay “Who Was Michelangelo?”
(1) https://www.artsatl.org/native-american-artists-reflect-on-their-roots-and-ancestral-lands-in-the-southeast/
(2) https://theonefeather.com/2023/10/30/this-land-calls-us-home-ebci-artists-included-in-exhibit-at-atlanta-airport/
(3) https://www.redlakenationnews.com/story/2024/01/11/news/atlanta-international-airport-displaying-this-land-calls-us-home-exhibit/119476.html
(4) https://umcmission.org/press-release/native-american-identity-and-experience-focus-of-atlanta-airport-exhibit/
(5) https://umcmission.org/thisland/
(6) https://www.cherokeephoenix.org/culture/this-land-exhibit-features-cherokee-artists/article_907ace5c-92b5-11ee-a082-d7c7a8dc0734.html
(7) https://www.11alive.com/video/news/regional/native-america/new-native-american-heritage-exhibit-hartsfield-jackson-airport/85-72c20527-8d73-4933-ba6d-3488caf40038