SALEM – On November 4, the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) presents Lifting the Sky, a fundraising event dedicated to artistic expression and our creative community honoring artist and PEM Prize recipient, Marie Watt (Seneca and German-Scot), and Trustee Emeritus and former President of PEM’s Board of Trustees Robert N. Shapiro. Lifting the Sky features a dinner, as well as drinks and bites by chef Lydia Shire, a live auction, a paddle raise for PEM initiatives, and an after-party with live music, dancing, and immersive experiences. Tickets are available for both the Dinner + Dance Party (6 pm to midnight) or simply the Dance Party (8:30 pm to midnight). All proceeds benefit PEM’s programs, exhibitions and initiatives.
Founded in 2021, the PEM Prize recognizes artists whose work explores the catalytic relationship between creativity and civic engagement. This year’s recipient, Marie Watt, is an interdisciplinary artist who explores the intersection of history, community and storytelling by drawing upon history, biography, Haudenosaunee protofeminism and Indigenous teachings. In 2019, Watt led a community sewing circle at PEM to co-create elements for PEM-commissioned artwork from her Companion Species series. The work is currently on view in PEM’s award-winning installation, On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America. Over the next year, Watt will create another collaborative artwork — a site-specific jingle cloud sculpture — with the PEM community, scheduled to debut at the 2024 Salem Arts Festival.
The name of PEM’s fundraising event, Lifting the Sky, is drawn from a story Watt first heard from Upper Skagit elder Vi Hilbert. As the narrative goes, the sky was starting to press down and overwhelm the world with darkness. It became incumbent on the people — who spoke different languages and didn’t necessarily understand one another — to find a common vocabulary, even just one phrase, that would allow them to work together. The word they found was yəhaw̓, which means to proceed, to go forward, to do. Working together using sticks and saying that one word, yəhaw̓, with group effort, they pushed up the sky. These clouds are lifted together, hoisted by many hands just as they were created by many hands. They are first steps in a rhythm of healing and gathering, of being and hearing together.
Tickets and additional information are available at: pem.org/liftingthesky
