Sara Leone, Director of Advancement, MMoA (860) 536-7601 x209
Lori Potter, Communications Director Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation (860) 460-7993

(May 22, 2025)—Mystic Museum of Art (MMoA) and The Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center (MPMRC) announce Gifts of the Ocean (Kutah Makooôkanash), the special exhibition culminating their year-long collaboration on the theme of forced migration. Filling all MMoA galleries, the exhibition illuminates the experience of the Pequot people on whose ancestral homeland MMoA was built.
Gifts of the Ocean (Kutha Makooôkanash) presents the historical wealth of Pequot culture, its near erasure by colonial conquest, and its vibrant contemporary expression through the traditional storytelling form of wampum and contemporary works by Pequot artists today. The exhibition runs from June 27 to October 12.
A summer of gallery talks, tours, and activities invites visitors to relate their own experiences of displacement and resilience to greater understanding of the experience of Pequot people.

Throughout the year, MMoA will continue to showcase a dynamic lineup of creativity featuring local, regional, and national artists—each offering fresh perspectives on the theme of migration and fostering meaningful conversations. Between 1500 and 1940, an estimated 60 million Europeans emigrated to the Americas. This wave of humanity forcibly displaced Indigenous populations intimately bound to their millennial homeland.

Beginning in the early seventeenth century, the Pequot Tribe faced encroachment by English colonists on their land and trade routes. Increasing conflict broke down former native alliances. The ensuing Pequot War was an armed conflict that took place in 1636 and ended in 1638 between the Pequot Tribe and an alliance of English colonists with the Narragansett and Mohegan tribes. Following the bloody Mystic Massacre, approximately 700 Pequots had been killed and the remainder taken into captivity. The war paved the way for English settlement of southern New England and established a framework for future conflicts. It took another 345 years for the tribe to rebuild their nation, achieve Federal recognition, and reclaim their land, in 1983.

The fertility of Pequot land and waterways, so coveted by English and Dutch colonists, shaped the very core of the tribe’s culture and traditions. Tribal history and the significance of the land and its waterways are richly expressed in the art form of wampum.

Wampum is a type of bead made from quahog clam and whelk shells. Indigenous peoples wove them into bracelets, necklaces, collars, sashes, and belts. Wampum was traded inland for furs, corn, beans, and squash and also used as currency in Dutch and British colonies until the 1660s. Gifts of the Ocean (Kutah Makooôkanash) features both the traditional art form of wampum, and contemporary artwork by tribal members, relating their history of forced migration, resilience, and restoration—in the setting of their ancestral home on the Mystic River.

Support for this exhibition was provided by the Kitchings Family Foundation, WONDR NATION, and funding from the Connecticut State Department of Economic and Community Development/Connecticut Office of the Arts (COA) from the Connecticut State Legislature.

About Mystic Museum of Art
Mystic Museum of Art (MMoA) has served as a focal point for the arts in southeastern Connecticut for more than 100 years. Founded in 1913 as the Mystic Art Association, the museum today engages visitors in richly curated exhibitions, interpretive activities, studio classes, and outreach programs. MMoA’s mission is to inspire creativity and critical dialogue by engaging the regional community in the understanding, appreciation, and practice of visual art.

About the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation
The Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation is a federally recognized Indian tribe located in southeastern Connecticut. As pioneers of the Indian casino gaming industry, the history of the Mashantucket Pequots reveals one of American’s greatest come-back stories which is featured at the world-renowned Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center. Today, the Tribe owns and operates one of the largest gaming resorts in North America, Foxwoods Resort Casino, along with a variety of complementary business enterprises, including Connecticut’s premiere luxury golf experience, Lake of the Isles and the decadent Spa at Norwich Inn. The Tribe’s health and wellness company, Pequot Health Care, is an industry leader in tribal and commercial health plan management and pharmaceutical services. As one of the highest revenue contributors and largest employers in Connecticut, the Mashantucket Pequots have hosted millions of visitors and provided billions in slot revenue payments to the State. The Tribe has also contributed millions in donations and sponsorships to support worthy charities, community events and programs, and other tribes in need, locally and throughout the United States. Dedicated to our future generations inheriting clean beautiful land, a safe community and a strong economy, we remain committed to promoting spirituality, strong family values, education, social stability, economic independence, and the wellbeing of our Tribal Members, employees and guests in a healthy and supportive environment. Our ultimate goal is to protect and advance our sovereign rights in order to build and preserve a cultural, social and economic foundation that can never be undermined or destroyed.
To learn more about the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation, please visit us at www.mptn-nsn.gov

What: Special exhibition, Gifts of the Ocean (Kutah Makooôkanash), a collaboration of Mystic Museum of Art and Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center.

Where: Mystic Museum of Art, 9 Water Street, Mystic, CT 06355
Phone: 860.536.7601

When: June 27 – October 12, 2025

Hours: Monday through Sunday 11 AM to 5 PM

Cost: Special exhibition admission $10 per person.
Admission free to MMoA and MPMRC members, members of the Mashantucket
Pequot Tribal Nation, US military, veterans, and their families, and children under 12.

Images:
1) Angel Bell Smith, Erin Hall, conte crayon on paper, from The Indigenous Peoples Project: The Mashantucket (Western) Pequot Women
2) Joshua Carter, Tooyupáhs Munhan (Turtle Island), Wampum bead necklace
3) Willem Janszoon Blaeu (1571–1638), Nova Beligica et Angela Nova (Map), ca. 1635,
Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research Center collection.