Creative Synthesis

The ideal of the open road has served as a way to examine contemporary life and the nature of change and growth. Some have taken this fascination with movement and space to another level, such as Edmund Morgan, who used land and space as a lens for viewing race relations in colonial America, and George Frederickson, who applied the ideas of openness and mobility to the history of South Africa. The ongoing research/art project “Driving East” builds on this legacy, using the idea of the road trip as a means of examining the lingering legacy of Manifest Destiny and the connections between race, history, and landscape.

For most travelers, the dramatic expansion of transportation infrastructure over the twentieth century and the homogenization of American culture have masked conflicts over land use, ownership, and—of particular interest for the creators of Driving East—the long, slow clash between Native Americans and Anglo-American society. Artist Sarah Kanouse and researcher Nick Brown use their journey to explore episodes of national and local history that reflect this complex, multigenerational, interaction, incorporating their experiences into both performance art and electronic media. The project moves to the east:

Often popularly imagined as an east to west journey, the road trip can be seen as a compressed, individualized and largely unconscious ‘re-performance’ of 19th century westward migration. Reversing this trajectory, then, is a gesture of moving back in time and has often served, particularly in film, as a metaphor for complicating or contradicting American history and culture. The performance component of “Driving East” consists of a series of group west-to-east driving trips as a form of ‘historic de-enactment’ that may help us understand both where we came from and how we came to be where we are. Each performance is accompanied by an exhibition, a discussion, and a video and audio archive.

This way of “complicating” history also helps connect the work to a broader audience by starting in the familiar world and teasing out the events of the past that play a role in the story. It also, as shown by some natural history writing, provides an interesting way of emphasizing contingency and escaping a narrative dominated by determinism and a simplistic view of progress.

In addition to the ongoing work, Driving East gives visitors a bibliography exploring the issues addressed in the project and providing an excellent point of departure for those interested in art, Native American studies, and the problems of territory and landscape. The section on the complicated nature of public memory–a topic that touches on battles over textbooks and monuments and that has piqued the interest of scholars including Michael Kammen and Michel-Rolph Trouillot–includes titles essential for anyone exploring narrative, identity, or history.