Return to Good Ground

For the 11th season of the Parrish Art Museum’s offsite exhibition series Parrish Road Show, Shinnecock artist Denise “Weetahmoe” Silva-Dennis (American, b. 1960) is creating a site-specific outdoor mural depicting the ancestral history of Shinnecock Bay, on view at the Sisters of St. Joseph Villa in Hampton Bays. The mural debuts at a public reception Sunday, October 16, from 2 to 4 p.m. and remains on view indefinitely.

“Wunne Ohke – The Return to Good Ground” continues the artist’s life-long practice of inter-generational education and storytelling through the arts. The mural and public programming with the artist’s Shinnecock research collaborators will provide insight into how these ancestral places came to be, how they’ve changed, and what they mean to the Shinnecock people today.

Wunne Ohke is Algonquin for “Good Ground” — the original place name of the Hampton Bays area given by the Shinnecock who first inhabited the region as a residential area. The name describes the smooth “good ground” that allowed ease of launching canoes for whaling. In her mural, Silva-Dennis combines a vibrant reimagination of the land from precolonial times with more recent, significant landmarks in the Shinnecock Nation’s history. “Wunne Ohke – The Return to Good Ground” considers how Shinnecock efforts to regain ancestral lands and revitalize traditional practices for future generations are implemented and celebrated through art.

Silva-Dennis fully realized her storytelling skills in 1995 with a monumental mural on a 75-foot wall at the Shinnecock Indian Reservation Community Center that depicted Shinnecock history and culture such as agricultural practices, whaling techniques, symbolism of the medicine wheel, the Circassian shipwreck, and contemporary sites on the Shinnecock Reservation. The mural is an affirmation of the artist’s commitment to collaboration with family, friends, and school children painting alongside her, and making themselves a part of the storytelling. Activism has long been a part of Silva-Dennis’s process: She has a rich history of protest poster design and is currently serving on the board of the Niamuck Land Trust and Shinnecock Graves Protection Warrior Society (SGPWS). In her painting “Sugar Loaf,” 2022, she reflects on the successes and continued goals of grassroots activism for graves protection and Land Back efforts — such as the purchase of the sacred burial site at Sugar Loaf Hill to be preserved and returned to the Shinnecock.

Organized by Corinne Erni, Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs and Senior Curator of ArtsReach and Special Projects, with support from Brianna Hernández, Curatorial Fellow, and in collaboration with the Sisters of St. Joseph, “Wunne Ohke – The Return to Good Ground” is on view daily beginning October 16, at Sisters of St. Joseph Villa, 81 Lynn Avenue, Hampton Bays. A free, public reception will take place outdoors on Sunday, October 16, from 2 to 4 p.m., rain date, Sunday, October 30. On November 4, at 6 p.m., Denise Silva-Dennis will take part in an Artist Talk at Parrish Art Museum, 279 Montauk Highway, Water Mill. The talk will also be livestreamed. Visit parrishart.org for details.