Holy Ground: The Oyster

Holy Ground: The Oyster by Danielle Jagelski (Red Cliff Ojibwe and Oneida) activates Alan Michelson’s large scale public artwork and explores the wisdom of the oyster, land, and human relationship to the Earth.

The work brings together voice, percussion, and spatial movement to create an immersive sonic experience rooted in land, ancestry, and collective gathering. Inspired by Indigenous traditions in which music, sound, storytelling, and ritual function as interconnected systems, the performance considers how these forms can serve as vessels for cultural continuity and communal reflection.

Performers:

Lorena Navarro (Shoshone-Paiute Tribes of the Duck Valley Indian Reservation), percussionist

Bo Shimmin (Pueblo of Acoma), tenor

Damian Norfleet, baritone

Holy Ground was selected via More Art’s 2025/26 Engaging Artists Commission open call, which supports emerging artists creating socially engaged work in the public realm.

The artist writes: “I am thrilled to be the awardee of the Emerging Artist Commission this year, and to have an opportunity to create work in a time of troubling artistic censorship and active efforts to sever the relationship between humanity and the earth. As an artist, I have never felt more motivated: we are the storytellers, historians, and knowledge-keepers right now. Holy Ground: The Oyster is integral in remembrance, hope, and activating our collective future.”

Holy Ground is commissioned and produced by More Art, co-presented with Governors Island Arts. The project and is supported in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, the Native Arts + Cultures Foundation, and the New Music USA Creator Fund (supported by the Claudette Sorel Endowment for Women in Music), with additional support from the American Indian Community House (AICH).

Header image: Danielle Jagelski, Holy Ground at Voices of Ascension/Church of the Ascension, video still by Four/Ten Media. Design/illustration by Shona Masarin.