Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House

About
Jeffrey Gibson’s ‘Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House’ serves as an homage to ingenuity of Indigenous North American peoples and cultures, to pre-Columbian Mississippian architecture, and to queer camp aesthetics. Gibson designed the multi-tiered structure to reference the earthen architecture of the ancient metropolis of Cahokia, which was the largest city of the North American Indigenous Mississippian people at its height in the thirteenth century. The earth mound of the pre-Columbian ziggurat is represented in Gibson’s multi-tiered monument with a plywood structure adorned with a vibrant surface of wheat-pasted posters. The posters integrate geometric designs inspired by the Serpent Mound located in Ohio, another monument of the Mississippi Valley, alongside texts that operate as activist slogans. Gibson also curated a series of Indigenous-led performances to activate the structure over the course of the ‘https://socratessculpturepark.org/monuments-now/MONUMENTS NOW’ exhibition.
Programming
Gibson invited three Indigenous creatives – https://socratessculpturepark.org/ortman-interview/Laura Ortman, https://socratessculpturepark.org/program/johnson-documentary-premiere/Emily Johnson, and https://socratessculpturepark.org/program/chacon-performance/Raven Chacon – to activate ‘Because Once You Enter My House It Becomes Our House,’ with a series of performances released as part of a virtual https://socratessculpturepark.org/program/gibson-screening-series/screening series over the course of the ‘https://socratessculpturepark.org/monuments-now/MONUMENTS NOW’ exhibition.