Eternal Testament
The Church, Sag Harbor, NY — March 23 to June 1, 2025

Co-curated with Shinnecock artist Jeremy Dennis, Eternal Testament transformed The Church—a former Methodist space—into a site of Native presence, memory, and refusal. Set in Sag Harbor, on the homelands of the Montaukett and Shinnecock Nations, the exhibition gathered artists from across the country whose works challenged settler narratives, reclaimed land-based histories, and intervened in the religious iconography embedded in the space.

Through humor, irreverence, and ceremonial power, the artists asserted Indigenous survivance and futurity. Works by James Luna, Cara Romero, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Denise Silva-Dennis, Tyrrell Tapaha, Marie Watt, and others asked audiences to reckon with histories of whaling, land dispossession, and forced assimilation while also offering visions of resilience, sovereignty, and balance.

At the same time, Eternal Testament was an experiment in redistribution—channeling resources from one of the wealthiest enclaves in the country toward Indigenous artists, communities, and nations. In a region long shaped by extraction and elite leisure, the exhibition redirected attention and capital to the sovereignty of the Shinnecock and Montaukett peoples, insisting that cultural presence must be matched by material support.

Rather than treating Native presence as symbolic, Eternal Testament affirmed it as ongoing and sovereign—an insistence that what was once suppressed in this place now resounds as testimony, demand, and offering