Vassar Street Residence Hall (W46), Lobby

In 2023 and 2024 the Co-Creation Studio at MIT Open Documentary Lab and Kanien’kehà:ka multimedia artist Jackson 2bears, also known as Tékeniyáhsen Ohkwá:ri, organized a public presentation of their work together on his new artistic project Ne:Kahwistará:ken Kanónhsa’kówa í:se Onkwehonwe, as well as a series of immersive events that included tours and meetings with Indigenous leaders from MIT and across the territory over four days.

This virtual walking tour and map features Native Spaces within Massachusett homelands, in what became the English colonized place called Newtowne, later Cambridge. While many of these locations may be familiar landmarks, this walking tour provides a hidden historical narrative which tells a story of Massachusett origins, settler colonialism and Indigenous survivance .

Many English colonists wanted to capture the spoken language of the New England natives in print. They often saw this work as integral to the Christianization of the New World and they needed help from local Nipmuc, Narragansett, Wampanoag, and Massachuset Indians to start to piece together the sounds and structure of this “foreign” language, as well as to reproduce it in print. This digital exhibit explores the contributions of those who labored in translating and printing works in the Algonquian family of native languages.