Sarah Sense, 2020 (National Marine Aquarium)

The 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower is a reminder of the connection between people on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Sarah Sense is a Native American artist who lived and worked in the UK. Using traditional Chitimacha and Choctaw techniques, she creates photo-weavings in 2d and 3d forms. Her permanent installation at the National Marine Aquarium Plymouth Sound Zone considers Native North American histories in England.

Commissioned by Take A Part and the National Marine Aquarium, this steel piece of art tells a story of British settler colonialism and its effects on Native North America here in England. It looks to the personal impact of 400 years and 3000 nautical miles.

Sense said of the piece: "History runs deep in the United Kingdom. History runs deep in North America. Between these two places is an ocean carrying stories of people moving between continents. While we enter Mayflower’s 400-year anniversary, communities in the United Kingdom and United States are questioning colonial settlerism. Before Europeans conquests, Native North America was rich with people, resources and culture. Through a process of settler colonization, the cultural and physical landscape of the Americas changed. When asked to create a Native North American perspective of Mayflower 400, I chose to make a memory of what was happing 400 years ago to Native North Americans in the United Kingdom and to bring that memory to the present so that we can heal and learn from the effects of colonization within Indigenous communities and environment. Listen to the Atlantic, It’s Speaking to You is a sound piece for participants to read aloud the names of Algonquin people of Native North America who died or went missing in London (1603-1630), around the time the Mayflower set sail from Plymouth, United Kingdom. In looking at this space between America and the United Kingdom, imagine that words are carried with the waves back to Native North America.”