Copper Leaf Leaves, silkscreen on gampi with copper leaf backing and cotton thread, 2023. Photo by Jeffu Warmouth.
…the leaves in Copper Leaf Leaves become screens—sites of projection. I sift through written histories from a colonial ledger and project the evidence of Indigenous presence and of Indigenous/colonial interactions and situate the copper sheathed leaves, now raised to eye level, in an architectural imaginary. The entire installation becomes a site of projection, enticing the viewer to enter into a realm that bridges forest and grid. The leaves are imbued with memory and materiality, inviting the viewer to partake.
Excerpt from “From Fleurons to Roverbots” by Deborah Santoro
The histories and lost tales on these leaves relate to the history of New England at a moment when Indigenous peoples were fighting for their land and their livelihoods in a corner of the Americas that curls around the sea, my genealogy through my father’s line; the Hardys and their interactions with native peoples in Maine, and in particular the stories of James Printer, Weetamoo, and King Phillip’s War which I understand, what little I think I understand at any rate, through the lens of the book Our Beloved Kin, by Lisa Brooks.
Deborah Santoro 