Weaving sense into our community’s sensibility
Indigenous artist Sarah Sense’s recent show at Rhode Island College created a powerful landscape of images that knit together our past and future lives
The contemporary photo-weavings by Native American artist Sarah Sense were recently on view at the Bannister Gallery at RIC. Sense’s exhibit at RIC tells the difficult story of land appropriation by colonizers, a narrative when considered within the broader context of current events conjures larger issues of ethics, the urgency of environmental protections being kept in tact, and societies functioning with care toward humanity.
The story initially appeared in Artscope, written by Suzanne Volmer. It is reprinted with permission. Images used with permission.
My apartment complex in Providence has been transformed into a natural habitat of robins, cardinals, Carolina wrens, and chickadees, bringing with them a willingness to believe that we are surrounded by the constant songs of survivors, if we are willing to take the time to listen to their voices.
Each time I take a stroll through the grounds of my apartment complex in the company of my outpatient physical therapist I find myself retelling the tales of my journalism exploits some four decades ago, which keep being met by expressions of disbelief: Really?
After a hiatus of more than a year, I even made it to my regular hair cutter who at first offered to shape my overgrown locks into a pony tail. All I wanted, I answered, was the opportunity to be believed when I talked with nurses and doctors and not be discounted because of my age or my scraggly hairstyle.
What does it take for a patient to be believed?
Editor’s Note: The following story is reprinted, with permission, having appeared in the March/April 2026 issue of “Artscope Magazine.” The article reviews “Land, Lines, Blood, Memory,” a recent exhibit at the Bannister Gallery at Rhode Island College.
When discussing her “Land, Lines, Blood, Memory” exhibition,
Elements of “I Want To Hold You Longer” were scheduled to arrive at Bannister Gallery fresh from exposure at the 2025 Paris Photo International Fair, where it was presented by Bruce Silverstein Gallery, New York City. The exhibition also reflected collected findings Sense found while conducting research at The American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Mass., the Brooklyn Museum in New York City, and the Montclair Art Museum in New Jersey.
Sense expected that the overall exhibition dynamic at RIC would function like a membrane of connective tissue with horizontal movement informing
The calico blanket quilt that she is in the process of making carries associations of Westward expansion. She intends to have its patterning visually dissolve
When discussing her “Land, Lines, Blood, Memory” exhibition,
Sense’s work re-contextualizes the good, the bad and the ugly. It addresses the complex subject of appropriated Indigenous American lands with the intension to switch, or invert a power dynamic, that continues to ensnare land as an asset within the context of the shrinking American landscape.
In her work, the artist honors the effort of her ancestral line, Chitimacha women weavers, who made basket after basket to raise money to buy land for their tribal members. Their basket-weaving was a constructive and urgent diplomatic effort aimed at negotiating their tribe’s belonging.
Sarah Sense’s photo-weaving ethos conceptually predates 2026, with all that date of transition implies today. In many ways, her artwork is like a mirror of truth. She keeps the discourse peaceful, informative and ulti
In our conversations leading up to the Bannister Gallery show, she spoke about her efforts to be an engaged mother – a role for which she felt she must be positive in when reflecting on ideas of collective future
Beyond the historical record
Indigenous American artist Sarah Sense's photo-weavings about land appropriation speak not only to the historical record; there is also a foretelling relevance given that our National Parks system is increasingly under siege today.
When these pristine wilderness areas entered the public trust, they weren’t entirely empty; indigenous people lived there.
The current political push to roll-back the timeline to before the National Parks system existed is intended to allow corporate mining access to wilderness above preservation concerns and continued public access.
Known by heart is the song, “This Land is Your Land,” a song by Woody Guthrie often sung by schoolchildren in the United States. It describes America as their legacy, and so, too, their identity.
Sense had requested permission from tribal leaders to use the patterns of traditional indigenous basketry in her contemporary, ones that honored the cultural legacy in accord with her tribal community.
Intentional designs
In “news” that developed after the article first appeared in print, the Choctaw Nation in Oklahoma intentionally overbid on a large warehouse facility that they purchased next to their ancestral lands, which prevented ICE from acquiring the property in order to convert it into a detention facility. When asked about the purchase, the brief diplomatic response was that the property was needed for tribal expansion. (See link below to recent news story.)
