MYSTIC — Years in the making, carefully developed and thoughtfully curated, a one-of-a-kind, ground-breaking exhibition — now on view at Mystic Seaport Museum, is attracting national attention. And it's not just because of the "Aboriginal Cooking Pot ca. 500 BCE" on display, or because of the brightly-colored, hand-carved canoe that sits at exhibition's center; nor because of the first edition 1663 Eliot Bible — translated into the Algonquin language — which is displayed behind glass, nor because of rare wampum beads — discovered at the site of the Pequot Massacre of 1637 — nor because of the impressive collection of paintings and sculptures created by such distinguished contemporary Black and Indigenous artists as Christian Gonçalves, Sherenté Mishitashin Harris, Sierra Henries, Gail “White Hair Smiling” Rokotuibau, Robin Spears and Felandes Thames.
"Entwined: Freedom, Sovereignty, and the Sea," which reimagines thousands of years of maritime history through the eyes of Indigenous and Black people from around the region is also ground-breaking because it marks the first exhibition organized by Akeia de Barros Gomes, the museum's senior curator of maritime social histories — and because it's the very first exhibit of its kind, created by a group of people not officially affiliated with the museum who are descendants of the Indigenous and African people who once lived along the shores of the Atlantic ocean. People from two cultures that have, in the past,.
