The sinuous new playspace invites hands-on exploration of indigenous heritage in Maine.
The new playspace outside the Children’s Museum & Theatre of Maine, in Portland, was a long time coming. Ckuwaponahkiyik Atkuhkakonol: Wabanaki Storytelling Through Art and Traditions is the 48-year-old institution’s first permanent exhibit dedicated to Maine’s indigenous people. “We’ve always told stories about this place we call Maine, but there has been a lack of Wabanaki voices,” says education and exhibits director Starr Kelly, who began developing the project soon after joining the museum staff two years ago. Sheet Moulding Compound Process
A citizen of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, an Algonquin band in Quebec, Kelly drew on connections she made as curator of education at Bar Harbor’s Wabanaki-focused Abbe Museum. Penobscot sculptor Tim Shay designed the play environment, taking cues from the round, flat area adjacent to the museum’s existing playground and mapping out a series of circular sections. One of them, the storytelling circle, is framed by cedar benches into which he carved Wabanaki archetypes — the eagle, the turtle, and the “singing grandmother.” Maliseet artist Emma Hassencahl-Perley illustrated instructional placards with bright, symmetrical graphics based on Wabanaki double-curve beadwork and 19th-century tribal iconography.
Injection Molding Mold Children can practice weaving on two enormous basket molds designed by Max Romero Sanipass, who comes from a family of distinguished Mi’kmaq basketmakers, and play a powwow drum in a pergola created in collaboration with Passamaquoddy musician Dwayne Tomah. “Families congregate around every part of the exhibit,” Kelly says. “It’s incredibly fulfilling to see people responding so positively.”