Mαwte: Bound Together

These artists consider binding in both literal, material terms—weaving, mending, combining, fusing—and metaphorically, such as being bound to a culture, a history, a family, or a community. A bind can unite and strengthen, but it can also tether us to legacies of colonial violence, dispossession, and disrupted land access. The works in the show bind and rebind past, present, and future, building relational ties across generations. Whether making the fragmentation of severed binds visible, celebrating the resilience of binds that persist, or presenting reparative visions of Indigenous sovereignty, the artists sustain ancestral knowledge and forge new paths, revealing the ways in which innovation is inextricably bound to tradition.

The exhibition is also bound to place. Colby Museum’s Joan Dignam Schmaltz Gallery of Art  is located on the banks of the Kennebec (Kwenebek[i]) River and situated within the ancestral homelands of the Abenaki and Wabanaki people. These places and their myriad stories are central to many of the works in the show, which treat land and water as conduits for memory and identity, drawing on Indigenous values of reciprocity, relationality, and kinship.

Mαwte asks what Indigenous art is and can be, and invites engagement that goes beyond categorization and preconceived expectations, articulating that Indigenous artistry is not frozen in time. Through a variety of mediums ranging from video to painting, beadwork to birchbark, and stained glass to fiber arts, the featured artists spark curiosity, challenge assumptions, and encourage a deeper commitment to learning within the museum space and beyond, reminding us of the interconnections that bind all things.

This exhibition extends the Colby College Museum of Art’s ongoing commitment to building relationships with the Wabanaki people. Situated as it is in Wabanaki homelands, the museum takes a pluralistic, open approach to American art and recognizes the deep Indigenous knowledge embedded in these lands. Mαwte supports the museum’s efforts to center Indigenous perspectives and art acquisitions, building upon recent exhibitions such as Wíwənikan… the beauty we carry (2019–20) and Painted: Our Bodies, Hearts, and Village (2023–24).

Mawte: Bound Together is curated by Sarah Sockbeson, guest curator, and Kendall DeBoer, assistant curator of modern and contemporary art, Colby Museum.