Gina Adams considers her Broken Treaty Quilts series to be be her life's work, and intends to make one for every broken treaty between various colonial governments and the indigenous nations of North America. The recently purchased work, Treaty with the Sauk and Foxes 1830, Broken Treaty Quilt, 2019, features a treaty that covers a wide range of land, part of which includes Iowa and the ground on which the Art Center now stands. Adams uses 75-100 year old cotton fabric from men's shirts, sewn onto antique quilts. The color arrangements are created via a complex system inspired by Joseph Albers' and Johannes Ittens' Modernist color theories.
DMAC News, Apr May Jun 2020
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Audio (1)
Gina Adams (American Ojibwa/Irish, Lithuanian Descent, born 1965)
Treaty with the Saux and Foxes, 1830, Broken Treaty Quilt, 2019
Run Time: 3:11
Recorded by Gina Adams, artist / April 2020
[Speaking Ojibwa]
Boozhoo.
Gina Adams.
Indizhinakaaz, Vancouver (artist’s note: “my home”)
Indonjibaa, Miingiizii (artist’s note: “my eagle clan”)
Indoodem.
I want to talk about the treaty with the Sauk and Fox. This treaty was created in 1830 between the United States government and the Sauk and Fox of Prairie du Chien, and of the land the Des Moines Art Center stands on. I do this work so that all people living in the United States and internationally right now can understand the history between the United States government and Native American Nations. I choose antique quilts because they signify the westward movement and Manifest Destiny. I want the quilts to be 150 years old, because that signifies the time period, thereabouts, when these treaties were created. It’s really important to know that there were 364 treaties originally, and over 500 if you consider every codicil of change. All of these treaties have been disregarded.
I’m a social-political artist, and I believe that it is my responsibility being a mixed hybrid, of being Ojibwa descent and colonizer descent. My great-great-grandfather was Samuel Adams, who was the cousin of John Quincy Adams, who was the son of John Adams, both presidents—early presidents of the United States. It’s important to know that these great men that created the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution also created these systems of assimilation and segregation and forced removals. I want the work of the Broken Treaty Quilt, Sauk and Fox, 1830—I want this work to come through to you softly so that you, the viewer, can accept it, and understand that our history is complicated. That you can look at this original quilt by a maker that is unidentified and understand that every single one of the Sauk and Fox and their generations, the generations, and the current Sauk and Fox who still exist are still feeling the effects of this treaty. And that every single one of the 364 treaties have the same vibration, and years and years of history of trauma related to it. I want you to look at this work and I want you to feel a yearning in your heart that change can happen, and that we can start recognizing the people who are original to this land.
Gigawaabaamin Miinawa (artist’s note: “we don't have a word for Goodbye in Ojibwa, instead it is, “I will see you again.”)
Thank you.
Miigwech.
