Community members drive the conversation across a fundamental reinterpretation of the collection, revealing new ways of looking at some of the museum’s most beloved works of art.
Passages in American Art is a fundamental reinterpretation of the PMA collection, platforming multiple voices, revealing new ways of looking at some of the museum’s most beloved works of art, and inviting community members to drive the conversation.
The project examines the existing collection, and along with recent acquisitions, commissions, and select long-term loans, integrates Atlantic narratives and Indigenous perspectives to expand the story of American art.
Through the expertise and partnership of multiple thought-partners, Passages is a responsive installation honoring multiple truths, complexities, and understandings. An Advisory Committee, comprised of members from Akomawt Educational Initiative, Atlantic Black Box, Indigo Arts Alliance, Gulf of Maine Research Institute, and Portland Public Schools, represent both existing and newly formed relationships with the museum.
About the Project
Made possible through the generosity of the Terra Foundation for American Art, Maine Community Foundation, Wyeth Foundation for American Art, Unum, and the Friends of the Collection, Passages highlights both major and lesser-known works in the PMA’s holdings and places them in conversation with one another across the second floor of the museum.
“With the vital support of the Terra Foundation for American Art, we are committed to thinking in collaborative, cross-cultural, and multidisciplinary ways to foreground how our collection can be a starting point for engaging with important questions: from considering legacies of colonialism and slavery, to exploring the very definition of ‘America,’ and researching artistic resonances with climate change,” says Shalini Le Gall, Chief Curator, Susan Donnell and Harry W. Konkel Curator of European Art. By bringing contemporary and historical works together, Passages aims to spark connections and ideas for future action around the many themes, issues, and histories on view.
The word “passages” speaks to the interconnected facets of the reinstallation, all of which engage diverse stories of water and land. From canoe portages traversed by Wabanaki nations through the Land of the Dawn (Maine and Maritime Canada) to the migration of sea-run fish and the human disruption of their waterways; from the Middle Passage endured by millions of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the passage of laws, tides, and time.
“The movement that ‘passages’ evokes can be associated with travel and arrival, gesturing to the legacy of global trade networks, slavery, and colonization in the Americas. The works on view in Passages invite us to consider our own relationship to these histories, to ask questions, connect the past with the present, and celebrate the beauty, knowledge, and resilience that art provides amidst profound change and upheaval,” says Ramey Mize, Assistant Curator of American Art. “This installation, in its effort to expand the boundaries of what we consider to be ‘American’ art, is evolving and ongoing. Over the coming years, new stories, ideas, and works of art will be introduced throughout the galleries, highlighting the many possibilities that this project has opened.”
The exhibition has been built through a long-term approach to help transform the space for PMA visitors, educators, and students and is accompanied by over 30 interviews with artists, community members, and collaborators who will be accessible by text, audio guide, a reflection space, and an in-gallery video.
Behind The Advisory Committee
“The processes we have been a part of for this project at the PMA have helped us think of applicable modes of engagement that are grounded in dialogue, sharing of knowledge, and honoring a variety of orientations to that knowledge,” says endawnis Spears (Diné/Ojibwe/Chickasaw/Choctaw), Akomawt Educational Initiative. “It was an important and helpful process to participate in.”
The PMA has previously partnered with Advisory Committees and prioritized multi-vocal approaches in major exhibitions, including N.C. Wyeth: New Perspectives (2019), Stories of Maine (2020), Mythmakers: The Art of Winslow Homer and Frederic Remington (2020), and David Driskell: Icons of Nature and History (2021). Passages marks an extension of this approach into the permanent collection for the first time. This collection focus allows more visitors to experience the installation for a longer period, and to learn more deeply about the complex and often erased histories within American art and the American story more broadly. The Advisory Committee members were compensated for their work, and through multiple meetings over the course of the year, helped advise, co-develop, and reinterpret the American art galleries alongside the PMA’s Curatorial and Learning and Community Collaboration teams.
“This reinstallation offers us a vital opportunity to present a more expansive story of American art and to foreground narratives that have yet to be shared in our galleries,” says Christian Adame, the Peggy L. Osher Director of Learning and Community Collaboration. “Working collaboratively and in dialogue with our partners has been a profound experience. It will shift the way we do our work moving forward.”
Multivocal Contributors
As a living installation, the PMA plans to collaborate with additional community members and this will be an evolving list of contributors.
Nolan Altvater (Passamaquoddy)
Ellie Bouman
Gayle Bowness
Lise Breen
Jason Brown, aka FIREFLY (Penobscot)
Vana Carmona
Steve Cayard
Cate Cronin
Pam Cunningham (Penobscot)
Josie Ellis
Fiona Hopper, Portland Public Schools
Delphine Adama Fawundu
Bob Greene
Emma Hassencahl-Perley (Wolastoqwiw, Tobique First Nation)
Reme Isgro
Samuel James
Starr Kelly (Algonquin First Nation of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg)
Jonathan Labaree, Gulf of Maine Research Institute
Jared Lank (Mi’kmaq)
Lisa Simpson Lutts
Kate McMahon
Marcelle Medford
Daniel Minter
Juanita Muise (Qalipu Mi’kmaq Band)
Erica Menard (Penobscot)
Roger Milliken
Chris Newell (Passamaquoddy)
Jason Pardilla (Penobscot)
Jennifer Pictou (Aroostook Band of Micmacs)
Benjamin Pochurek
Joe Robbins (Penobscot)
Theresa Secord (Penobscot)
Emily Serway
Richard Silliboy (Aroostook Band of Micmacs)
Asha Tamirisa
Isabella Tarkinson
Sarah Timm
Patricia Quigley Wall
Linda Woodard
Amy Wu