The Western formation of what has become the Americas was born through water. The symbolic birth of a nation, nor its often violent formation, is never a one-time event. It is a process of taking, extracting, and dispossessing. Take—a verb meaning to lay hold of, to displace things or people from where they belong.
A Nation Takes Place examines the ways seafaring imaginaries are connected to the lethal technologies of enslavement, colonialism, genocide, dispossession, and extraction. This unique perspective invites us to rethink our understanding of these historical events and their water connections.
The exhibition draws together a collection of artwork by 38 artists and from over 20 lending partners to help us comprehend the complexity of America’s formation, a project unthinkable without waterways, conquest, and slave ships.
While the archive, with its limitations, provides some access to the past, some histories have been erased, others remain inaccessible to language, and others are resistant to being written. In these gaps, the artists in A Nation Takes Place invite us to interpret and understand these spaces where words cannot.
August 21, 2024 - March 2, 2025
800 Riverview Dr, Winona, MN 55987
Tuesday - Wednesday, Friday - Sunday: 10 AM - 5 PM
Thursday: 10 AM - 8 PM
Monday: Closed
