A&E

Barrick Museum’s ‘Spirit of the Land’ honors Avi Kwa Ame through community perspectives

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Sharon Schaefer’s “Dawn Watch”
Sharon Schaefer / Courtesy

Shoes, beverage cans, shell casings, undergarments and fragments of holiday ornaments are piled up inside Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art. The mountain of trash represents Spirit Mountain, the main geological feature within the proposed Avi Kwa Ame national monument south of Las Vegas near Searchlight.

Alan O’Neill’s “Treasures From the Land”

Alan O’Neill’s “Treasures From the Land”

Curators of Barrick’s Spirit of the Land exhibit explain that artists and volunteers collected the installation’s materials from 800 trees at the base of the mountain over the past year—remains from a ritual dating back to the 1980s, when locals named the area “Christmas Tree Pass” and began adorning it with festive “decorations.” Curators say they hope the exhibit raises awareness about Avi Kwa Ame and sparks a conversation about how humans view their outings in the desert, and how they can affect others who belong to the land.

Paul Jackson of the Fort Mojave Tribe, one of Spirit of the Land’s 50 participating artists, says appreciation is critical to preserving the landscape and sacred rituals. “Communication and protection of the animals and plants has always been our tradition, and it still is to this day,” says Jackson, a teacher and field guide with the tribe. “A lot of it is getting lost. There’s not enough education.”

Jackson’s paintings in the exhibit portray the land as the “place of creation” for the Mojave and other Yuman-speaking tribes that reside around the Colorado River where modern-day Southern California, Nevada and Arizona meet. “We believe that the mountains, in the first times, were our guardians, because they were alive.” Jackson says. “They took care of us by having natural spring water, … animals, different types of fruits and vegetables to eat. They were our protectors.”

Naida Osline’s “What Is Above Is Below”

Naida Osline’s “What Is Above Is Below”

From dumping trash to using ancient petroglyphs for paintball target practice (or breaking them off entirely for souvenirs) to flying drones over sacred land formations without legal permission—and sharing the location so that off-roaders can find it—the land has been desecrated in ways that are irreversible, Jackson says. After generations of Fort Mojave tribe members have fought to protect the land, a bill introduced to Congress in February could further push for lasting preservation of the area, should President Biden sign and designate Avi Kwa Ame as a national monument.

The exhibit’s curators say the status of the land concerns not only the tribe, but also rural and urban residents, visitors, recreationists and environmental groups who all enjoy it. That multitude of perspectives can be seen in the exhibit, which runs simultaneously at Searchlight Community Center and will migrate to Laughlin Library in April. Its display of “community postcards” includes more than 175 entries from a range of groups—off-road enthusiasts, park rangers, and city dwellers—interpreting the landscape with photos, paintings and poetry on the backs of postcards.

“We all have a different relationship to this place, but we all validly love [it],” co-curator Kim Garrison Means says. “It’s been very powerful for residents of the rural communities and residents of Fort Mojave and other tribal communities that are helping us and the people of the city to all see that. And then we can start communicating with each other on the important issues.”

Spirit of the Land March 25-July 23; Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., free. Opening reception March 25, 5 p.m. Marjorie Barrick Museum of Art, spiritoftheland.org.

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Shannon Miller

Shannon Miller joined Las Vegas Weekly in early 2022 as a staff writer. Since 2016, she has gathered a smorgasbord ...

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