Nicholas Galanin’s In every language there is Land / En cada lengua hay una Tierra
(Courtesy of the artist and Peter Blum Gallery | Photos: Nicholas Knight, courtesy Public Art Fund)
Nicholas Galanin, a member of the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, explores in his art practice life’s movement and its profound ties to land. His work transcends, subverts, and permeates boundaries while contesting oppressive systems. A celebrated Lingít and Unangax̂ artist, Galanin amplifies Indigenous narratives through his arresting art, challenging non-Indigenous domination and revealing our interconnectedness to each other, land, community, and the future.
His latest work is a massive steel sculpture, standing tall at Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn until March 10, 2024. In every language there is Land / En cada lengua hay una Tierra sends semiotic waves across the land, unearthing the interdependence of peoples, cultures, languages, waterways, and tierra. Constructed with the same material and scale as the US-Mexico border wall, the sculpture spells “land” in a fashion that recalls Robert Indiana’s well-known Love images. To construct the 30-foot-tall structure, the artist diverted steel that was en route to building the border wall, momentarily interrupting the wall’s construction.
Galanin exposes the way such territorial demarcations depend on the constant dispossession of Indigenous peoples, lands, waterways, and ways of knowing. “The work is about language and land,” he told the Art Newspaper, “so specifically this title utilises English and Spanish, the two colonial languages on either side of the US-Mexico border.”
