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NEW MOUND CITY is a site-specific installation and photography project created for the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis in 2010. Based on the original nickname of St. Louis —“Mound City”—the project documents current sites where ancient Native American earthworks once sat, and creates contemporary “mounds” in their place. Much like Cahokia, the well-preserved mound complex just across the Mississippi, St. Louis had dozens of earthworks, an extension of these sprawling mound complexes on both sides of the river. This Mississippian culture thrived in this region roughly 1,000 years ago, the height of its population reaching 40,000 people—making it more populated than London at the time. Yet, in contemporary St. Louis, this physical history is all but erased. Utilizing an 1819 survey of the “St. Louis Mound Group,” drawn by T.R. Peale and Thomas Say, and overlaying this map onto the city streets of St. Louis, the project showed how the STL Mound Group is now mostly vacant lots and abandoned buildings, including the massive railroad-lined Cotton Belt Freight Depot, a homeless tent-city known as “Hopeville,” and a former hazardous waste transfer station, wherein I built a Toxic Glove Mound out of thousands of used, decaying, rubber gloves left onsite. (below: entrance to abandoned toxic waste transfer station mound site). |
Glove Mound, South with Swift |
Drum Mound, Northeast with Asbestos |
Glove Mound, Southeast |
Drum Mound, Northwest Silhouette |
Glove Ship |
Glove Mound, North |
Drum Mound, Northeast with Paint Can |
Glove Mound, Southeast from Roof |
Glove Room |
Drum Mound, Northeast with String |
Glove Mound, Southeast, Here We Go |
Glove Mound Takes Shape |
Drum Mound, Northeast with Totems |
Glove Mound, Northwest |
Glove Mound Tree |
Glove Mound, South, Cloudy |
Entrance to Mound Site, Re-Boarded |
Monks Mound West |
Monks Hut North |
Stone Circle North |
New Mississippians, East from Monks Mound (Hopeville) |
Monks Hut South |
Monks Mound West, with Hut and God |
Monks Hut, North with Tarp |
Monks Mound West, West |
Stone Circle, Monks Tomb North |
Stone Circle Hut, Monks Tomb North |
Cave Paintings, Monks Mound West |
Fertility Goddess, Monks Mound West |
Monks Hut and the New Mississippians |
New Mississippians with Riverboat |
Monks Mound, Sun God Canopy |
Sun God |
Glyph Totem |
Canine Skeleton |
Oracle Game |
Petrified Hand Forms |
Artifacts, detail |
Mound Sites and Artifacts |
Divination Wheel |
Fossilized Enamel |
Time Piece |
Name Badges |
Ceremonial Solar Disk |
Radioactive Bulletin Board |
St Louis Mound Group, 1809 |
200 Years Later - St Louis Mound Group, 2010 |
Mound 27, La Grange de Terre (the earthen barn) aka The Big Mound |
Mound 27, La Grange de Terre (the earthen barn) aka The Big Mound |
Mounds 22 and 21 - Vess Mound |
Mound 11, the Old Reservoir |
Mound 19 |
Mounds 18, 17, and the Grand Plaza |
Mounds 18, 17, 16 |
Mounds 12, 7, and 6 aka Falling Gardens Mound |
Mounds 10, 9, 8, 7 |
Mound 4 |
The Old Spanish Fort |
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Sugarloaf Mound |
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