Sing Our Rivers Red
From April 25 to 30, the Class of 1945 Library invites the Exeter community to a traveling exhibition of earrings, curated by poet Tanaya Winder, called “Sing Our Rivers Red” (SORR). This exhibition brings Exonians attention to a topic not often mentioned in the media: missing/murdered indigenous women.
Intern at the Office of Multicultural Affairs Danielle Lucero first learned of Tanaya Winder after the introduction to one of the shows of an Indigenous rapper named, Frank Waln. Lucero felt that Winder’s words resonated with her own experience, and after following Winder on social network, she followed the completion and travels of “Sing Our Rivers Red.” The exhibition was first created by Winder because of her desire to honor the missing and murdered indigenous women across Canada and the United States.
Lucero first decided to bring the exhibition to the Exeter community because she wanted Exeter to understand that the school itself was built on lands of indigenous people and that it is important to honor their memory.
“I thinks it’s chilling and eerie because it reminds me that people do disappear. The exhibition makes it more tangible about the fact that people disappear.”
Lucero said, “The 1491’s were assembly speakers, Gyasi Ross as our MLK keynote, Tanaya Winder to honor National Poetry Month and Women’s History Month, and now Sing Our Rivers Red to help Phillips Exeter understand that Indigenous women are targeted more often than any other ethnic or racial group in Canada and the United States. I wanted to bring SORR to Exeter because it is probably one of the most visually powerful and emotional powerful exhibits I have seen that helps to humanize statistics about sexual assault and murder. It helps to humanize a people that are so often thought of as subhuman or non-existent.”
Students who attended the exhibition overall had very positive attitudes toward the exhibition.
Upper Charis Edwards said, “I think it is a really powerful display and it speaks to people in a surprising way. People pass by the location often, so many people notice and react to it.”
Prep Katie Yang said, “The exhibition was eye-catching and it really had a strong message to it. The earrings were a very unique and meaningful way of trying to represent the indigenous women. It was also a really good reminder for us to remember Native Americans and still be grateful for all they’ve done.”
From this exhibition, Lucero hopes that students remember and continue to sustain conversation about indigenous people, including indigenous women.
“Because this topic of Missing and Murdered Indigenous women is not talked about, not covered by the media, and it is so important to start to raise our consciousness about injustices against the first people of this land. I just hope that students start to think about indigenous people and remember that we are still here, we are alive and breathing and not just something of the past.”
Students also felt that the exhibition was a good reminder of the reality where we start to forget the existence of these group of people and what they had to go through during their time.
Senior Hiro Kuwana said, “I thinks it’s chilling and eerie because it reminds me that people do disappear. The exhibition makes it more tangible about the fact that people disappear.”
“I thought it was a powerful exhibit and it shed a lot of on a problem in our country that isn’t really discussed a lot,” prep Wynter Tracey said. “Overall, it was a meaningful experience and made me remember that we should always keep this in our mind.”