Long before Henry Hudson’s arrival in 1609, Manhattan or Mannahatta, as originally named by the Indigenous Lunaape/Lunaapeew/Lenape people, was a place of gathering and exchange amongst diverse nations. Today, Broadway runs along a portion of the original matrix of trails that connected Mannahatta to the broader northeast region and the Great Lakes. Artist Beatrice Glow and The Wayfinding Project at the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University partnered with Alexandre Girardeau of Highway101ETC to build Mannahatta VR, an interactive virtual reality experience which brings together the past and present of one Broadway block.
This ongoing project is growing through conversations with Native culture bearers, ecologists, artists, educators and technologists. In the process, we ask ourselves how can we expand knowledge of Indigenous Manhattan? What does a sustainable Indigenous future look like? How do we ethically create a historically palpable digital storytelling experience? We approach the virtual reality experience not as a final product, but a platform for our collective envisioning that has the potential to evolve into an immersive oral history archive.
Mannahatta VR was a supplement to Lenapeway, an installation that was on 24-hour view in the street-level windows of 715 Broadway (at Washington Place) from October 10, 2016 (Indigenous Peoples’ Day) to December 9, 2016. The location of the installation, which was viewable from the sidewalk 24/7 and was cosponsored by NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and the A/P/A Institute, marks the intersection of the main Lenape trail and a side-trail that traverses through present-day Washington Square Park.
The experience begins on a palpable digitally reconstructed Broadway block (8th street and Waverly Place) where the street is revealed to be part of a matrix of Indigenous pathways where plants are identified by Lenape names and the turtle, turkey and wolf clans appear as star constellations. Navigating the virtual environment, one finds a bow and arrow to shoot the Netherlands Monument that commemorates the “Purchase of Manhattan,” the misconception that the Lenape sold Manhattan to the Dutch for $24. Upon toppling the monument, Chief Mann of the Ramapough Lunaape Nation appears holographically to speak about environmental stewardship.
The Mannahatta VR experience expanded in 2019 to include more oral traditions from culture bearers documented with volumetric scans. Guided by the songs of George, Brent and Xander Stonefish, members of the Turtle Clan Lunaapeew Nation in Moraviantown, Ontario, Canada who trace their homelands to New York, this work invokes the layered histories of Manhattan as Mannahatta (the original name of the island). As a result of the Dutch colonial dispossession of their ancestral lands, today, the Lunaapeew/Lenape are dispersed throughout Turtle Island (North America). In this video, George Stonefish speaks to resilience and the power of traditional songs, and father and son Brent and Xander Stonefish sing together to give thanks to the Creator. Filmed within the virtual environment of Mannahatta VR, these overlapping realities and perspectives are revitalized by the original ecologies of a once biologically diverse and bountiful Mannahatta Island, showing the early days of the Dutch company town New Amsterdam, and presenting an alternative vision of a usually bustling Broadway block becoming overgrown with vegetation.
The Land On Which We Gather, November 2019, group exhibition at the Martin-Mullen Art Gallery, SUNY Oneonta Fine Arts Center, Oneonta, NY, US
Expanded Perspectives: Our New York Histories, June 19, 2019, symposium, American Folk Art Museum, New York
Making Art in Allyship with Indigenous Communities, August 15, 2019, Center for Folklife and Heritage Speakers Series Presentation, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C. US
Global Asian Art Exchange: Asian Indigenous Relations in Contemporary Art Conference, June 13, 2019, artist talk, Concordia University, Montreal, CA
Place Listening: Exploring Material Narratives, The 9th Annual Concordia University Art History Conference, March 4, 2020, artist talk, Montreal, CA
Park Avenue Armory as part of “Looking Back | Looking Forward: Culture in a Changing America,” a Conversation Series event co-organized by The Aspen Institute Arts Program & ArtChangeUS, February 17, 2018, New York
Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, November 14, 2016 | RSVP here
Asian/Pacific/American Institute at New York University, December 12, 2016 | RSVP here
Exploring Future Reality 2016, organized by NYC Media Lab, Viacom White Box Theatre, November 9, 2016 , exhibitor New York
Read NYU New's article by Eileen Reynolds
Mannahatta VR v. 2022 is now available for experiencing on Oculus Quest 2 VR headsets.
The terms Lunaape, Lunaapeew and/or Lenape reference the Indigenous peoples whose traditional homelands span the regions presently known as New York, New Jersey, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The “Lenape” spelling is the Unami dialect and “Lunaape/Lunaapeew” spelling used in the Munsee dialect. Lunaape is the singular form and Lunaapeew is the plural form. For this project, our main community partners are Munsee peoples who trace their origins to present-day Downstate New York and Northern New Jersey. The Lunaape/Lunaapeew names are sometimes conflated with, or used interchangeably with, Lenape, Lenni Lenape or Delaware.
As non-Native artists, we approach this collaborative work with the intention to hold space for the communities that we work in allyship with. We do not intend to represent nor speak on behalf of Lunaapeew/Lunaape/Lenape peoples and their diverse experiences. However, we do intend to use our cultural platforms to support building more nuanced dialogues and understanding of Native cultural perspectives.
Equirectangular screenshot of the "future" scene from MannahattaVR.