Looking at Communities: How Can We Share Community Stories?

Through their artworks, artists often choose to communicate stories. David Hammons’s Day’s End alludes to the history of Pier 52 and the 1975 artwork of the same name by Gordon Matta-Clark, which no longer exists. In addition, the work touches upon the stories of the changing communities that have surrounded the site at different time. Whether personal or societal, written or communicated in another manner, storytelling brings up questions, such as who narrates? Whose stories are told? Whose stories are not told and why?

Hammons described Day’s End as a monument to Gordon-Matta Clark. Unlike a traditional monument such as a statue or building erected to commemorate a notable person or event, the work’s delineation and transparency subtly make reference to all that had existed before. Monuments are traditionally erected to ensure that histories regarding people and events are not forgotten. With Day’s End, Hammons chose to allude to Matta-Clark’s work in a way that is open ended and invites many possible interpretations from viewers. 

Lenape Land

The Lenape are the original inhabitants of the area now considered as the Meatpacking neighborhood. They are Indigenous to Lenapehoking, the area of land that includes New York City, New Jersey, parts of New York State, Pennsylvania, Delaware and Connectitut. Manhattan was taken from the Lenape word Manahatta, which means the land of many hills. The Whitney Museum is located near the Lenape fishing and planting site called Sapponckanikan, which translates as “the land of tobacco growth.” 

The Dutch sailed into Manahatta in 1609, and established a settlement on the island. The Lenape faced violence and disease brought by the Europeans, and were forced to leave their land when the British assumed control of the region in the 1660s. 

Despite displacement, Lenape continue their cultural and language practices today. Some are citizens of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape Tribal Nation in what is currently known as New Jersey. Others are part of the larger Lenape diaspora and are recognized federally as the Delaware Nation of Oklahoma, Anadarko Oklahoma; Delaware Tribe of Indians, Bartlesville, Oklahoma; Stockbridge-Munsee Community, Bowler, Wisconsin; and in Canada: Munsee-Delaware Nation and the Delaware of Six Nations.  

Activities 

Elementary School 

Explore Ideas About Community
Have students discuss what community means to them. Ask them to develop a list of what distinguishes their classroom or school community from other communities. Encourage students to explore what common attitudes, interests, and goals they share. Invite them to create a symbol or artwork that represents their own community. 

Transform an Object into a Monument
Have students select and adapt an object in their home or neighborhood and turn it into a public monument. Ask them to consider how they could make it into something meaningful and a celebratory event for others. 

Commemorate Someone Special
Ask your students to choose somebody they know personally and whom they believe should be commemorated. Have students decide how they can make sure that this person will be remembered. Ask students to create a monument for them in the medium of their choice. 

Interview Community Members
Invite members of your local school, business, or cultural community to visit your classroom virtually or in person. As a class, prepare some questions for the visitors. Students might ask about the person’s childhood memories, their current role in the community, or stories or advice they would like to share with a younger generation. If a classroom visit is not possible, students could interview community members outside of school, with the support of an adult family member, and present their stories to the class.

Middle and High School 

Uncover a Hidden History
As an example of changing communities in different regions, share with students that the Indigenous Lenape people once populated the lower Manhattan region and have them investigate relevant sources. You may want to tell students about the contemporary artist Alan Michelson, a New York-based Mohawk member of Six Nations of the Grand River, who methodically researches to create site-based multimedia works that uncover suppressed histories.

Ask students to pick a person or people from history who might not be well known and make a list of the most important points they think should be transmitted to future generations. Have them decide how these points should be communicated. (For example, through stories, naming things, representing their actions, or through a monument). Invite them to select the medium of their choice and consider the most appropriate way to convey their points about the people, their communities, and histories. 

Examine Oral Histories
In the area surrounding Gansevoort Street, labor histories gradually transitioned from maritime employees and longshoremen to meatpacking workers. These stories might have been lost in time if it were not for the compilation of oral histories. Have students investigate oral histories relevant to their school, families, community, and/or curriculum. Invite them to think about who they consider might be overlooked workers, immigrants, or other communities they might know personally or are interested in researching. Have them create an artwork that communicates their investigations.  

Explore Ideas About Monuments
Share with students the Whitney Museum’s podcast, Artists Among Us (Episode 5 - “Making the Ghost Visible”: coming June 11, 2021). Then have students investigate the current events regarding the contemporary dismantling of Confederate-linked monuments & statues. Ask students to design and make models of what they think could be the alternatives for existing monuments. 

Tell a Story About a Community
Have students listen to Artists Among Us (Episode 3 - “Latex and Lard in the Meatpacking District”: coming May 28, 2021) and/or research artworks by Shelley Seccombe, Alvin Baltrop, Gordon Matta-Clark, and David Wojnarowicz. Ask them to think about what other ways the stories of a people or community can be told. Invite them to creatively communicate, in the manner of their choosing, a narrative celebrating the Lenape, LGBTQ, Meatpackers, or another community.  

Additional Resources 

Urban Displacement Project: Includes New York City map and displacement and gentrification videos.

Children’s Museum of the Arts: Information about the Lenape people.

Hudson River Clearwater: Resources about the Lenape. Includes a slideshow.