AFA 22nd Anniversary

22nd Anniversary 76 www.afamag.com | w ww.incollect.com Alan Michelson (b. 1953), Mohawk member of the Six Nations of the Grand River, Hanödaga:yas (Town Destroyer), edition 1/3, 2018. High-definition video, bonded stone replica of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s late 1700s bust of George Washington, antique surveyor’s tripod, and artificial turf. Sound: members of Six Nations of the Grand River Territory. Digital video looped, 5:57 minutes. Dimensions variable. Museum purchase, by exchange (2019. 2019.38.1AB). © Alan Michelson. Courtesy of Peabody Essex Museum. Alan Michelson’s Hanödaga:yas (Town Destroyer) is a critical intervention about early American figures. Michelson projects historical maps, documents, portraits, and site markers onto a reproduction of George Washington’s bust. The archival images trace the history of the 1779 campaign against the Haudenosaunee people. General Washington ordered “total destruction and devastation” of their homelands in current-day upstate New York in waging the American Revolution. Led by Major General John Sullivan and Brigadier General James Clinton, the troops seized livestock and goods and burned sixty villages to the ground. Washington’s armies forced more than 5,000 Haudenosaunee to flee as war refugees and experience land dispossession, famine, and death. These actions earned Washington the name Hanödaga:yas, or “Town Destroyer,” which singers chant in various dialects. Michelson’s work prompts us to consider whose stories have defined America, and ask, are we ready to acknowledge new stories?