Four Mothers Collective: Ripple In Traditions
Positive Space Tulsa
Through November 23, 2024
We sometimes think of traditions as static things—unchanging customs or rituals passed down from generation to generation, usually tied to a rite of passage or a notable date. These actions hold familiarity and comfort for some and stress for others (let’s not discuss my family’s response one Christmas when I changed that vintage green bean casserole recipe). Often we just do them by rote, by passive repetition, with little memory of how they started, what they’re supposed to represent, or how they actually connect people across the years.
But what if we thought about traditions as active, living things—less like ossified forms and more like natural organisms? What if, as the curators of the current exhibit at Positive Space suggest, they ripple?
For “Ripple in Traditions,” the Indigenous-led Four Mothers Collective brought together works by 20 multigenerational BIPOC women and 2-Spirit artists that meditate on tradition as a process of live transmission. “With the concept of the ripple effect, traditions echo through time,” reads the Collective’s statement about the show. “Their impact evolves, while their origins remain the same. Each piece of art is a narrative carrying ancestral wisdom, customs and heritage forward to the next generation.” Like DNA itself, the creative act bears its own lineage forward, even as that lineage shifts within its new incarnation.