This May, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) invites the Salem community and beyond to participate in a unique, month-long collaborative art project. PEM, in collaboration with the 2019 PEM Prize recipient Marie Watt (Seneca Nation), is excited to create a cloud-like sculpture made from tin jingles. This sculpture will be unveiled at the 16th annual Salem Arts Festival on June 8, 2024.
Project Details
Dates: May 11 – June 7
Location: Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA
Unveiling: June 8 at the Salem Arts Festival
Participation: Open to all visitors (ages 8+) during museum hours (11 AM – 4 PM)
About the Artist
Marie Watt is an acclaimed interdisciplinary artist known for her work that intertwines history, community engagement, and Indigenous teachings. In previous projects at PEM, Watt facilitated community sewing circles to create “Companion Species: Cosmos, Sunrise, Flint,” which is currently exhibited in the museum’s “On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America.” Her unique jingle sculptures, integral to this project, use tin jingles fashioned from tobacco tin lids—elements traditionally used in Jingle Dances, a healing ritual originated during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic by the Ojibwe community.
Community Participation
Starting May 11, community members can join us from 11 AM to 4 PM to assist in stringing and assembling the jingles. These will then be sewn together to form an abstract, cloud-like sculpture to be suspended in the museum’s Main Atrium.
Karen Kramer, PEM’s Curator of Native American and Oceanic Art and Culture, notes:
“This collaborative project not only allows for a hands-on art creation experience but also embodies the ‘butterfly effect’—where small, individual actions contribute to grand outcomes. Through this, Marie Watt connects us all to the potential of collective creativity and healing.”
Event Highlights
PEM Prize Community Art Project:
When: Saturday, May 11–Friday, June 7
Where: Main Atrium, Peabody Essex Museum
Admission: Included with general museum entry
Salem Arts Festival & PEM Prize Opening Day:
When: Saturday, June 8
Admission: Free and open to the public
Activities: Jingle Dance performance by Acosia Red Elk (Umatilla Nation), artist talk by Marie Watt, scavenger hunt, themed brunch in the Atrium Café.
This event promises to be a celebration of culture, creativity, and community, co-produced with Salem Main Streets and the Creative Collective, showcasing the vibrant cultural fabric of Salem. Join us to experience the joy of collaborative art and community engagement at PEM this spring!
Peabody Essex Museum
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The mission of the Peabody Essex Museum is to celebrate outstanding artistic and cultural creativity by collecting, stewarding and interpreting objects of art and culture in ways that increase knowledge, enrich the spirit, engage the mind and stimulate the senses. Through its exhibitions, programs, publications, media and related activities, PEM strives to create experiences that transform people’s lives by broadening
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