Wikhikonol: Stories & Photos Exhibit Opening

Wikhikonol is an educational and immersive experience, marrying image and sound, that invites folks to be active participants as they wander, witness and listen to stories chosen from the Beyond the Claims– Stories from the Land & the Heart interviews. Photography by Nolan Altvater & Maya Attean.

Wikhikon is the Passamaquoddy word originally used for birchbark maps but now refers to book, image, map, or any written material. For this exhibit, it can be understood as a visual tool for storytelling that offers spaces for relations and understandings to emerge from the Land and from the people who are connected to it. It is a term that challenges and resists dominant, western understandings of stories and the Land and the relationships in which they attempt to force Wabanaki people into.

Nolan Altvater said, “This exhibit is a celebration of the myriad relations that Wabanaki people have with our homelands. The stories blur the lines between image and word while inviting the audience to critically think and learn with the literacies of our land beyond the claims of the settlement act”.

George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections & Archives | Website | View More Events
Co-hosted with: Bowdoin College Library

Contact the organizers