Polly’s Cradle
Governor’s Island, NYC
NEW YORK (10/11/22) – The West Harlem Art Fund and artist Molly Must are proud to announce the exhibition of Polly’s Cradle, an interactive installation centering an adult-sized cradle and oversized mobile, with original soundscape by artist Kyp Malone (Brooklyn-based singer and multi-instrumentalist, and member of the bands TV on the Radio, Iran, Rain Machine, and Ice Balloons). Must created the welded steel sculptures at the Steel Yard in Providence, RI, and composed the installation during her Visual Muze Storytelling Residency through the West Harlem Art Fund in the summer of 2022. The installation is on view at Governors Island until October 30th, with a reception on Saturday, October 15 from 1-5 p.m, featuring a live performance by Kyp Malone.
Polly’s Cradle was inspired by a story passed down through Must’s Appalachian family for generations, about her Scots-Irish great-great-great-great grandmother Mary Moore, known as “Polly,” who was taken captive by Shawnee warriors in 1786, at the age of 10 years old. Following an attack on her homestead and the slaying of her family, Polly was taken by Black Wolf (son of Corn Stalk) on a journey of 500 miles, as his clan retreated from ongoing attacks by white settler militia. She experienced tenderness once integrated in the group, but was eventually sold to an English fur trader in Canada where she lived in servitude and was severely abused. Three years after her capture, Polly united with a surviving family member and was brought home to the Appalachian Mountains. Later in life she commissioned an adult-sized cradle to help her cope with PTSD-related insomnia. The story is documented in a book published by her son James Moore entitled The Captives of Abb’s Valley.
“Polly’s story is one of intense sorrow that speaks to the complexities of colonialism and patriarchy, wherein thousands of traumatized people are pitted against each other in a fight for cultural and bodily sovereignty,” says Must. “For Polly (who is my namesake) the cradle was a vessel of healing and comfort, a literal space to attend grief and trauma, cultural splintering and loneliness. For me, the cradle symbolizes many contradictions: innocence versus complicity, safety versus power, belonging versus otherness. It is an ongoing work exploring my whiteness and personhood, ancestry and relationship to the mountains, acknowledging and reckoning with the settler colonial history that my lineage is tied to.”
The cradle is made of welded steel, muslin, and painted cotton textile, and people are invited to get into it and experience being gently rocked. The oversized mobile is made of welded steel and found iron agricultural artifacts. The soundscape is created by Kyp Malone, sampling Molly's voice reading from The Captives of Abbs Valley, and also her and her mother’s voice singing a traditional family lullaby.
Molly Must is a public artist from West Virginia with long-standing interest in storytelling, collectivism, monuments and public history. Her practice is rooted in painting, metal sculpture and installation. She spent ten years organizing and painting community murals in Asheville, North Carolina, and gained interest in sculpture through her work as a carpenter. She recently completed a masters in painting and sculpture at the New York Studio School in Greenwich Village.
Kyp Malone is a Brooklyn-based singer and multi-instrumentalist, and member of the bands TV on the Radio, Iran, Rain Machine, and Ice Balloons. Kyp Malone is known for It Comes at Night (2017), Never Back Down (2008) and Kill Your Darlings (2013).
The West Harlem Art Fund is a twenty-four year old public art and new media organization dedicated to presenting art and culture in public spaces in promotion of historical and cultural heritage. For more information, visit https://westharlem.art/. Our heritage symbol Afuntummireku-denkyemmtreku is the double crocodile from West Africa Ghana which means unity in diversity.
Statement from the artist:
This is an ongoing work exploring my whiteness and personhood, ancestry and relationship to Appalachia, acknowledging and reckoning with the bloody settler colonial history that my lineage is tied to.
Polly is my namesake and her story is the root of my own. Her tale is one of intense sorrow that speaks to the complexities of colonialism and patriarchy, wherein thousands of traumatized people are pitted against each other in a fight for cultural and bodily sovereignty. Her cradle also speaks to an inner struggle of the mind, and the many ways in which relationship/community ruptures effect our nervous systems and bodily integrity.
We don’t choose to be born, when or where or into what culture we’re raised. We inherit all sorts of faulty lenses and sordid origin stories. We are formed by those around us, sweetly hypnotized by old lullabies, arcane nursery rhymes, traces of our ancestors hopes, grievances, and biases within conflict. What happens when those who guided us, when those who lulled us to safe sleep, are lost? And did they ever know the way? How do we begin to see the frame around our lives? When does the innocent child become the complicit adult? When does the complicit adult see the wounding of their inner child?
A giant cradle is a goofy thing; it makes you feel small and childlike. It makes you feel like a big baby. It’s playful, yet it is about rest. It suggests nascent identity, and growth. And still, grief and trauma are bound to the image of the cradle, alongside traditional practices of nurturance, care and healing. The cradle means splintering from a mother’s body; a cradle is a lonely place. It is a symbol of contradiction, between belonging and alienation, safety and vulnerability. For me, this cradle represents healing, reckoning and futurity.
