Their Tender Hearts

Imagine thousands of children disappearing, and no one investigates or even bothers to look for them.  Would you be outraged?

This happened in the US from the 1880s through the 1990s.  Children of Native American families were forcibly removed from their families and sent to boarding schools across the US.  The goal of this government was to strip the children of their native heritage and erase their culture.  These schools were rife with neglect, malnourishment and abuse (both physical and sexual).

Often children ran away or died, and there was no accounting for what happened to them.  Thousands of these Native American children are STILL unaccounted for.

This artwork seeks to visualize the loss of these children.  The pages of the book This Tender Land are punctured with 60,000 holes to represent the children, their families and their lost culture.

This artwork can be installed in a variety of ways, including hanging from a ceiling or from walls.

Available for loan or purchase.