Photographer and writer Austin Bryant delves into the intertwined and elusive nature of history and memory in “Where They Still Remain: African American and Wampanoag History Intertwined,” at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum through June 8. Bryant uses his photographs, archival images, and historical newspaper articles to ignite our thinking about histories that have been lost to time and erasure.
The story that sparked his four-year project is that of Randall Burton, an enslaved man who escaped from a ship just offshore from Holmes Hole (Vineyard Haven) in 1854. He trekked across the Island while being chased by the sheriff, and eventually found refuge in the landscape of Aquinnah. Beulah Vanderhoop, a Wampanoag woman, discovered Burton. She sheltered him and arranged safe passage from Menemsha to New Bedford, where he reportedly made his way to Canada.
Bryant says, “I quickly learned that wasn’t the only example of the Black and Wampanoag community coming together. I am a Black son of a white mother, so I’ve always been interested in how cultures come together.”
“Where They Still Remain” is a poetic experience in which we link visuals through our unique associations. “The exhibition starts from this fact-driven place with a story that happened,” says Bryant, “but I’m exploring the histories of the Island in a different way.”
We don’t know the specifics of the Black and Wampanoag Vineyarders depicted in the poignant black-and-white archival images that line the wall in one nook of the gallery. Slightly blurred, they remain anonymous — their histories a mystery. Bryant likewise redacted parts of period newspaper articles. “By reducing the amount of text, I realized that it opens things up for the viewer, rather than overexplaining.” Leapfrogging among the remaining phrases in one of the Vineyard Gazette articles about Randall, we read: “made good his escape to the shore … bondage … have the negro disposed of … the negro or others for him … briars and thorns.”
Bryant’s photographs are evocative tendrils rather than straightforward narratives. His image of “Toad Rock” off Moshup Trail is enigmatic: “Toad Rock is tied to the Wampanoag creation story of the benevolent giant who created the Island by dragging his toe in the water. He left his pet toad, turning it into a rock when he left. This is where, when there were many disparate tribes on the Island, they would leave messages for one another.” At night, Bryant illuminated the rock — which looks like a giant toad –– infusing the creature with a mystical air. He also leaves the meaning of the enormous tree that dominates the barren Tisbury landscape in his photograph “White Oak” up to us. Is it, with the ring of prayer flags wrapped around its broad trunk, an homage to someone unknown, or is it possibly a memorializing of something more ominous, such as a lynching? “It is evocative of many things, depending on the viewer,” says Bryant.
There seems to be more to hold on to regarding the allusions to the Burton and Vanderhoop story in “The Cellar.” Here, we see two hands on the rim of the opening to a cellar, waiting for the person to emerge from below. “Where He Was Hidden” is a photograph of the house where Vanderhoop concealed Burton. Taken from a low angle in early spring, the still-bare foliage envelops the entire building like a scraggly beard that obscures a person’s visage. Says Bryant: “It’s an example of all these stories that are almost in plain sight all around us, but are lost to time.”
Bryant includes portraits, too, anchoring us in the present. NaDaizja Bolling, director of the Aquinnah Cultural Center, stands on its porch, gazing straight at us, dressed in richly textured regalia whose brown, beige, and cream colors blend into the winter Aquinnah landscape behind her. Bryant captures David Vanderhoop as he leans over, stoking the fire inside his wetu, the traditional Wampanoag dome-shaped dwelling made from cedar saplings, bark, and cattail reeds. Bob Jennings, whose family has come to the Vineyard for many generations, sits looking out contemplatively on his porch in Oak Bluffs. Sudaara White greets our eyes with a warm smile; her mother is the treasurer of the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe, and her father is Black. Bryant explains, “The tie between the two communities is clear, and a longstanding phenomenon across the U.S., not just New England.”
Bryant notes, “With all three — the text, archival images, and my photography –– the viewer has to essentially construct what they believe the story to be, rather than there being a clean narrative. That clean narrative doesn’t exist for a lot of families who are Black, indigenous, or of color.”
He says of the exhibition, “This is a very special place, and I want people to take a second look at what has been lost to time, what has happened here, and who has a relationship to the land.”
“Where They Still Remain: African American and Wampanoag History Intertwined” is on view through June 8 at the M.V. Museum.
