Re-Site 2024 | Maya Tihtiyas Attean – Roots of Resilience: Echoes of Connection

Maya Attean’s Roots of Resilience: Echoes of Connection, reveals the historical narrative of the relationship between the Wabanaki and the First Parish Church in Machigonne, or what is now known as Portland, Maine. Maya’s work illuminates the deeds of 1757 where church leader Reverend Thomas Smith and his cohorts profited from bounty incentives outlined in the Spencer Phipps Proclamation, to lead a caravan to perpetrate violence upon the Wabanaki people. As Maya writes, “The attempted genocide of my people failed to extinguish our unyielding spirit; I stand as a testament to that survival.”

Through the use of photography against the left side of the First Parish Church Meeting House in the Memorial Garden, these images serve as a solemn reminder of the connections lost to history’s shadows, juxtaposed against the enduring bonds illuminated by the Wabanaki, people of the Dawn. Simultaneously, an accompanying audio piece, blends chants with archival recordings of Wabanaki children from 1996, weaving sounds that echo a shared continued legacy. This is a response to acknowledge these harsh truths and speak to the strength and legacy of Indigenous ancestry and the Indigenous experience in Maine. 

The opening event on May 5 coincides with Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Awareness Day, and will be an opportunity to experience the audio component live.

Maya Tihtiyas Attean (b. 1994) is a Wabanaki artist. She grew up on the Penobscot Nation Reservation. Her experience growing up on a reservation then migrating to living in a city has given her a unique perspective of two worlds that merge together through marrying techniques of multiple cultures within her work. She earned her BFA with honors in Photography in May of 2023 from MECA&D. She is currently one of the 2024 BIPOC artist studio residents at SPACE Gallery in Portland, Maine. She continues to make images that seek to explore the intersection of the earth and those that live on it through the lens of time, trauma, and connection.

SPACE is pleased to present Re-Site 2024, the second iteration of the site-specific, temporary public art and Portland history-telling initiative we first launched in 2020. This year’s series features artwork by James Allister Sprang, Maya Tihtiyas Attean, Ashley Page, Rachel Alexandrou, and Ling-Wen Tsai, in collaboration with historians Seth Goldstein and Libby Bischof.

Each of these 5 artists were nominated by the previous group (Asha Tamirisa, Shane Charles, Heather Flor Cron, Veronica A. Pèrez, and Asata Radcliffe) and selected a site within the Greater Portland area to propose a temporary public installation or performance in response to its history. 

During the first iteration in 2020, the idea of Re-Site stemmed from the Maine Bicentennial, quickly becoming more urgent and relevant due to the growing call for change across the intersections of civil rights, climate change, public health, and political process. In the four years since these first activations, we are thrilled to bring these new projects and histories to light in order to broaden our knowledge and awareness of these local histories and understand how their impact has brought us to where we are today, through various artistic lenses. Our hope for Re-Site 2.0 is to further expand and engage upon what we first started, and broaden the artistic possibilities to demonstrate “and generate dialogue about what we want to carry with us into the future.” 

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Re-Site locations, schedules, and details:

Please take note that each site has specific days and interpretations it will be viewable to the public. All sites will feature a Re-Site lawn sign, which will include information to see the full artist statement, site history, photo and video documentation, and a bibliography with further research on key related objects viewable in public collections. Documentation will be regularly updated and archived on the individual project web pages linked below. 

During the first iteration in 2020, the idea of Re-Site stemmed from the Maine Bicentennial, quickly becoming more urgent and relevant due to the growing call for change across the intersections of civil rights, climate change, public health, and political process. In the four years since these first activations, we are thrilled to bring these new projects and histories to light in order to broaden our knowledge and awareness of these local histories and understand how their impact has brought us to where we are today, through various artistic lenses. Our hope for Re-Site 2.0 is to further expand and engage upon what we first started, and broaden the artistic possibilities to demonstrate “and generate dialogue about what we want to carry with us into the future.” 

Re-Site 2024 is made possible with the generous support of the Mellon Foundation’s Humanities in Place initiative.

Site History: First Parish Church

The current church was built in 1825-1826 to replace the former church building known as “Old Jerusalem.” The former church was built in the 1740s and was described as “small and wooden.” The State Constitution was drafted in Old Jerusalem in October 1819. The following year Maine gained its independence from Massachusetts as part of the Missouri Compromise. Maine was admitted to the Union as a “free” state and Missouri became the first state west of the Mississippi to enter the Union as a “slave” state.

The bell from the old church was installed in the new building. The new church was crafted from granite quarried in Freeport. The bell was replaced in 1862 with the current 3,340 pound bell. The church’s chandelier incorporates a cannonball that allegedly damaged Old Jerusalem during the British raid on Portland during the American Revolution.

The building is one of sixteen stops on the Portland Freedom Trail. The trail focuses on Portland’s African Diaspora community, the cities abolition movement and the Underground Railroad. William Lloyd Garrison, one of the country’s leading abolitionists, spoke at the church in 1832. His visit is widely seen as the beginning of the modern abolition movement in Portland. Garrison advocated for immediate emancipation of enslaved Africans in the American South without compensation for enslavers for their “property.” In 1842 abolitionist speakers Stephen Symonds Foster and John Murry Spear were attacked in front of the church by pro-slavery residents of Portland. Spear was almost beaten to death on the front steps and spent several weeks recovering at the home of a local abolitionist.

Reverend Thomas Smith
Reverend Thomas Smith attended Harvard College, graduating at the age of 18. He was ordained pastor of Falmouth’s First Parish in March 1727. The city was renamed Portland after the American Revolution. Smith maintained that position for sixty-eight years. He also served as the regions medical doctor. His journal, co-authored with pastor Samuel Deanne, is a crucial primary source historical document about Greater Portland in the 1700s. His house is described as “the best house in town” and the only house on the peninsula that had wallpaper.

Smith supplemented his modest minister’s income with various ventures including investing in expeditions to hunt down and either capture or kill Wabanaki individuals. Captives were often enslaved and sometimes sent to the West Indies to labour on plantations. Smith was one of the signatories of the March 1757 Articles of Agreement that called for “…Falmouth aforesaid Scouters and Cruisers in Order to captivate and kill the Indian Enemy to the Eastward.” An official proclamation from Massachusetts Lieutenant Governor Spencer Phips awarded English settlers 50 British pounds, paid out the public treasury, for the scalp of any male Penobscot over the age of 12 and 25 pounds for every female scalp. Smith invested in fitting out the English “Scouters and Cruisers.” He wrote in his journal later that year that “ I received £165 and 33 of Cox [fenced in land?], my part of scalp money.”

The Wabanaki in Casco Bay
The Wabanaki Confederation was formed by the Abenaki, Penobscot, Maliseet, Passamaquoddy and Mi’kmaq tribes to defend themselves against Mowhag aggression in the 17th Century. Euro-American scientists assert that the Wabanaki, which translates to “the people of the Dawn Land,” have resided in the land today known as the State of Maine for somewhere between 10,000 and 13,000 years. The Wabanaki, however, believe they have lived here since the beginning of time. The Wabanaki called the region today known as Casco Bay Cascoak, “the land of the herons.” Before the arrival of European colonizers the region was an important Indigenous trade center where hunter-gatherers from the north traded for crops grown around Cascoak and south of the region.

The French and Indian Wars were a series of six wars that can be viewed as one protracted conflict in Maine between English colonists and the Wabanaki and their French allies. These conflicts were: King Philip’s War (1675-78), King William’s War (1688-99), Queen Anne’s War (1703-13), Dummer’s War (1721-26), King George’s War (1745-49), and the French and Indian War (1755-59). During King William’s War Wabanaki freedom fighters and their French allies won a major victory here. Fort Loyal, which sat at the intersection of India and Fore streets, was captured. This led to a 15-year period when no English colonists returned to the region and the Wabanaki were able to reassert their ownership of the area.

Resources

Maya Tihtiyas Attean
Instagram @mayatihtiyasart