By Nicholas Galanin, currently housed at the Seattle Art Museum

Full item description:

Galanin’s work engages themes of persistence, power, and survival in the face of settler colonialism and its legacies of institutional racism and collective amnesia. Here, the floor plan of the British Museum is painted over a blue field. Pictograms of baskets, masks, woven hats, weapons, tools, and textiles reference the contested objects held in the museum’s collection, while a red line maps an escape route for these examples of Indigenous cultural production. In many Native cultures, hide paintings relay histories across generations and objects embody lineages; in referencing both, Galanin is proposing a getaway plan for his ancestors.

Close-up:

#it’s weird how I’m so interested in this piece of art#and yet at the same time so put off by the museum-speak#‘art criticism speak’? ‘liberal arts speak’?#that my brain goes numb while reading the description#not really the point tho#raising a glass to freeing indigenous artifacts from the British museum#Godspeed

you are real as shit for this. anywho:

“Galanin’s art is about how Native communities everywhere have consistently been pillaged both literally and culturally by a bunch of white assholes. These white assholes settle on the foundations of Native homes they burned down (also figuratively and literally) and maintain this status quo through such tactics as making discrimination and bias against Native peoples an intrinsic framework of their society, and also by responding to any criticism by going, ‘What? We didn’t do that. Shut up.’

This art piece depicts the blueprints for the British Museum on deerskin as well as illustrations of stolen Native objects the thief (the British Museum) continues to refuse to return to their rightful owners. A red line shows an escape route by which these pilfered pieces might one day manage to slip through the greedy, thieving grasp they currently reside.

In many Native cultures (and in fact in all cultures all across the world) art is used to teach history from one generation to the next and objects are ascribed specific and important meanings. The stolen objects currently being held hostage by the British Museum are in many cases captured family members. This art piece is a warning, a plea, and a plan with a message that unfortunately many peoples have learned throughout history: freedom will never be given by the oppressors. It must be stolen.”