For the 11th season of the "Parrish Road Show," the Parrish Art Museum's offsite exhibition series, Denise (Weetahmoe) Silva-Dennis, a Shinnecock artist, has created a site-specific outdoor mural at the Sisters of St. Joseph Villa in Hampton Bays, depicting the history of Shinnecock Bay. The opening will happen on Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m.
Titled "Wunne Ohke -- The Return to Good Ground," the mural continues Ms. Silva-Dennis's lifelong practice of intergenerational education and storytelling through the arts. The mural and related public programs will illuminate how ancestral places came to be, how they have changed, and what they mean to the Shinnecock people today.
"Wunne Ohke" is Algonquin for "Good Ground," the place name of the Hampton Bays area given by the first Shinnecock inhabitants of the region. The name refers to the smoothness of the land, which facilitated the launching of canoes for whaling. The mural, which reimagines the land from pre-colonial times while adding more recent, important landmarks, considers Shinnecock efforts to regain ancestral lands and revitalize traditions for future generations.
Ms. Silva-Dennis graduated from Hamilton College with a B.A. in studio art. She works primarily in acrylic for her figurative paintings and is an accomplished beadwork craftswoman. The traditional Eastern Woodland style of beadwork was handed down to her from her mother and the elder women of Shinnecock and Hassanamisco-Nipmuc Nations. Her work includes mandala necklace and earring sets, beaded medicine fans, walking sticks, beaded cradleboards, beaded moccasins, and beaded crowns.
In 1995, Ms. Silva-Dennis created a monumental mural on a 75-foot wall at the Shinnecock Indian Reservation Community Center that portrayed Shinnecock history and culture. The mural affirmed her commitment to collaborating with family, friends, and schoolchildren to tell their stories.
A retired Southampton Elementary School art teacher, Ms. Silva-Dennis served on the board of the Niamuck Land Trust and Shinnecock Graves Protection Warrior Society. Her 2022 painting "Sugar Loaf" reflects on the grassroots activism for graves protection and Land Back efforts, such as the purchase of the sacred burial site at Sugar Loaf Hill in Southampton, which is to be preserved and returned to the Shinnecock.
The exhibition has been organized by Corinne Erni, the museum's deputy director of curatorial affairs and senior curator, with support from Brianna Hernandez, curatorial fellow, and in collaboration with the Sisters of St. Joseph, who serve the people of Long Island as educators, social workers, health care professionals, and spiritual directors.
The mural will remain on view indefinitely.
