Experience Sound Installation 'nkwiluntàmën' at Pennsbury Manor
MORRISVILLE, Pa. (WPVI) -- Tour the grounds of Pennsbury Manor with your phone as your compass and experience a sound installation called 'nkwiluntmn' by Indigenous artist Nathan Young.
"'nkwiluntmn' is the Unami Lenape name of this piece," says Young.
It means I am lonesome for it.
"Such as the sound of a drum," says Young.
The Lenape lived on the land where Pennsbury Manor is located.
"Pennsbury Manor is a reconstructed home of William Penn," says Douglas Miller, historic site administrator for Pennsbury Manor.
"And the Pennsylvania story would be radically different if he was not welcomed by the Lenape," says Miller.
Young lives in Oklahoma, but his tribe is native to Pennsylvania.
"This is the homelands of my ancestors - it's Lenapehoking," says Young, who is a member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians.
Young created what he calls a multi-sonic experience with four musicalized benches and four signs, that together create a narrative.
"I'm trying to encode Lenape thoughts and Lenape ideas into this space," he says.
Young says he included some thoughts on what it might have felt like to be forced to leave your home.
Young says it's been hundreds of years since the voices of the Delaware Tribe have been expressed in the area of Pennsbury Manor and "that's the longing."
The signs are two-sided.
Young says one side includes prose about exile, while the other side has designs meant to inspire what territories and space might have looked like.
"This is an opportunity, through art, to touch a little bit of that history," says Miller.
Young says, "It's important to remember that there were people here before."
Nathan Young's 'nkwiluntmn' runs through next April.
'nkwiluntmn' at Pennsbury Manor | Tickets
Pennsbury Manor
400 Pennsbury Memorial Road
Morrisville, PA 19067
