Shifting Landscapes

Through Jan 25

Book ticketsBecome a Member
All

8 / 8

Previous Next

Alan Michelson with Steven Fragale
Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field), 2019

8

Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field) is a site-specific augmented reality installation that places viewers in a circle of tobacco plants. Four hundred years ago, when the Dutch arrived in what is now Manhattan, there was a Lenape fishing and planting site called Sapponckanikan (tobacco field), near what is currently the foot of Gansevoort Street close to the Museum. Tobacco was, and remains, a sacred herb used ceremonially by Native peoples across Turtle Island, a name for North America used by many Indigenous peoples. Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field) recalls and honors the Lenape and their tobacco field.

Alan Michelson
Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field), 2019

A digital display shows plants in a modern indoor setting, mounted on a stand in front of a glass-walled room.
A digital display shows plants in a modern indoor setting, mounted on a stand in front of a glass-walled room.

Installation view of Shifting Landscapes (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 1, 2024–January 2026). Alan Michelson with Steven Fragale, Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field), 2019, Sapponckanikan (Tobacco Field), 2019. Photograph by Audrey Wang

Artists

Explore works from this exhibition
in the Whitney's collection

View 117 works

On the Hour

A 30-second online art project:
Maya Man, A Realistic Day In My Life Living In New York City

Learn more about this project

Learn more at whitney.org/artport

On the Hour projects can contain motion and sound. To respect your accessibility settings autoplay is disabled.