the course of liberty
Saturday, November 14 at 6:00 PM
At Airtight Garage, 30 Northey St, Salem, MA, 01970, United States
The Course of Liberty brings together photographs from Jeremy Dennis’s ongoing series Rise to examine the contradictions between America’s promises of freedom and the historical and ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples. A member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, Dennis draws upon the legacy of the Pequot Massacre of 1637 and King Philip’s War (1675–1676), two defining conflicts in New England’s colonial history marked by massacres, enslavement, displacement, and the violent suppression of Indigenous resistance. These histories are frequently presented as chapters in the disappearance or defeat of Native peoples, overlooking the Indigenous nations and communities that survived and remain connected to their ancestral homelands. Through staged, cinematic photography, Dennis revisits these histories from the present, using suspense, horror, and humor to challenge the idea that Indigenous people belong only to the past. In Salem, Massachusetts, Dennis extends this inquiry to the colonial fears surrounding the witch trials and the broader ways Puritan settlers interpreted Indigenous spiritual traditions through accusations of witchcraft and devil worship. Such beliefs contributed to the portrayal of Native people and the woods as dangerous or threatening, reinforcing colonial justifications for conversion, exclusion, and violence. Working with local participants and artist Isabella Fernanda, Dennis brings these histories into a collaborative process of research, performance, and image-making. The supernatural becomes a way to examine how fear shapes collective memory, from colonial descriptions of Indigenous resistance to contemporary myths of disappearance and return. Special thanks to Mass Cultural Council for their Creative Experiences grant and for additional funding from the Foundation for Contemporary Art to realize this exhibition. Saturday, 11.14 Exhibition Opening and Performance Wednesday, 12.02 Artist Talk with Jeremy
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