By Kelly Yang, Class of 2023

Our Drumbeat, Our Heartbeat

Student-Submitted Note: The installation is designed for Native American Literature class. The assignment requires the student to design an installation for a boarding school or college in Massachusetts that educates the community about the local tribe’s past, present and future presence.

Our Drumbeat, Our Heartbeat is an interactive art installation designed for Brown University that celebrates the survival and thriving of the Wampanoag community in the present and future. Brown has long committed to Indigenous people’s rights. It started a year-long exploration in 2021 into the relationship between the university, the land on which it sits on College Hill, and the local Indigenous Wampanoags, who were once the land’s sole occupants (Brown). However, from the Wampum Granoff Center exhibit in 2021 to the Native Enslavement display in 2022, Brown has focused more on showcasing the ancient history of local Native people than on demonstrating their vitality and prosperity now and in the future (Kimball). I choose Brown University for my installation because, in addition to the annual Powwow celebration at Brown, which similarly only focuses on traditional ceremonies and costumes, futuristic interactive installations can make a more persistent and visual statement about Wampanoags’ present and future existence on campus. I intentionally place the interactive installation on Brown’s College Green, a grassy park serving as a student hub for activities and games. Its open spaces have an advantage over closed buildings in that they allow maximum access to alumni, students, professors, and visitors. The grass and trees of the College Green also echo the Wampanoag spiritual beliefs of protecting Mother Earth and “car[ing] for the land” (Avant 429).

Our Drumbeat, Our Heartbeat consists of four drums triggering waves of light traveling towards a four-meter medicine wheel floating above the area. The interactive design invites Brown students, alumni, professors, and visitors on the Main Green to drum in unison to create an audio-visual extravaganza, the intensity of which is dependent on the pace and intensity of the drumming. Drumming is an indispensable part of Wampanoag culture and practice; it helps the Wampanoags to “live by the rhythms of Mother Earth” and reinforces Wampanoags’ “special relationship to the superior spiritual forces which governed the universe” (Avant 429). Similarly, the medicine wheel in the middle of the installation honors the Wampanoags’ belief in balancing life’s four stages, elements, and seasons. An interactive drumming installation helps the students and faculty understand where their school’s land comes from and the history and spiritual beliefs in this sacred place in a more engaging way.