A major new exhibition opening later this month in Auburn will examine the forced displacement and return of the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ/Cayuga people through art, historical records, music, and storytelling tied directly to their ancestral homelands in the Finger Lakes.
The exhibition, titled “Sa:gwáyoˀ Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ/Cayuga People, We Returned,” will run from May 30 through Sept. 19 across the West End Arts Campus, which includes the Schweinfurth Art Center and Cayuga Museum of History & Art on Genesee Street in Auburn.
Organizers say the exhibition focuses on the historic and ongoing impacts of displacement experienced by the Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ nation, one of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, while also highlighting resilience, cultural continuity, and efforts to reestablish connections to traditional homelands around Cayuga Lake.
The exhibition traces that history through centuries of conflict, treaty negotiations, forced migration, and land loss following the American Revolution and the Sullivan-Clinton Campaign of 1779, when Continental Army forces destroyed dozens of Haudenosaunee villages under orders from George Washington.
According to organizers, many Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ people later returned to the region before again being displaced through what the exhibition describes as fraudulent state treaties that transferred Indigenous lands into military tracts for Revolutionary War veterans.
The exhibition will feature contemporary Haudenosaunee artwork alongside archival materials, artifacts, video, audio, and educational displays examining both the historic displacement and the continuing cultural and political significance of the Cayuga homeland.
The Cayuga Museum portion of the exhibition will focus primarily on Gayogo̱hó:nǫˀ history before, during, and after the American Revolution. The Schweinfurth Art Center installation will highlight contemporary artistic responses to diaspora, dispossession, resilience, and return.
Curators said artists and makers from across all six Haudenosaunee nations contributed to the exhibition.
An opening reception for the campus exhibitions is scheduled for May 30 from 4 to 6 p.m., while a larger public celebration featuring music, dance, arts, crafts, and food is planned for June 6 from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the West End Arts Campus. A separate Cayuga/SHARE Farm Picnic is planned for June 7 in Union Springs.
Admission to the exhibition on regular days will be $15 for both institutions, while special events connected to the exhibition are free and open to the public.
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