What if the Matriarchy Was Here All Along? takes the works of three contemporary artists and examines a reality which the Amazons did not actually vanish. In several of Akina Cox’s featured horse drawings we see a daisy-like flower, a reference pulled from the Gate of Ishtar. Many religions refer to Ishtar (also called The Goddess of Bodily Love or The Goddess of Love and War) as a demon or a sort-of avatar for one. Growing up in the Unification Church, everything Cox was taught to be afraid of were actually things and people who were good for her, and much of her work is about the journey of learning to identify with these “enemies.” For her, life as an ex-cult member is like being in a funhouse mirror; everything that’s up is down. Several of her works prominently feature snakes, which according to scholars, are used in the Bible as a veiled reference to Ishtar. This particular visual representation was meant to show the goddess as an adversary figure, but Ishtar was also the Goddess of Fertility, so serpents could be thought of as a nod to new life, as well. Supporting the exhibition is a short story of the same title written by Cox, which tells a tale of Amazon women who escaped a patriarchy on horseback, describing the relationship with their horses as nothing short of harmonious.

In March of 2021, Najja Moon was invited to be the inaugural artist for the New Monuments program at the Bass Museum of Art in Miami, FL where she presented Your Momma’s Voice in the Back of Your Head. The monument was constructed using brightly colored, gradient dichroic plexiglass with speakers encased inside echoing mantras, scolds and colloquialisms voiced by Moon’s own mother, as well as the mothers of friends and family. In addition to these recordings, the artist held an open call for community members to visit her studio where she interviewed them about their relationships with their mothers, later pulling phrases from these conversations for the sound portion of the work, which included the voices of Miami-Dade County residents in English, Spanish and Creole. The monument was meant to be up for a year, but was unfortunately vandalized, and ultimately destroyed. For What if the Matriarchy Was Here All Along?, Moon has resurrected Your Momma’s Voice in the Back of Your Head by using remnants of the piece to create a miniature version of the monument. The sculpture is presented with the original sound piece through headphones and the work is placed inside of a case atop a pedestal, alluding to a precious quality following the destruction of a commanding and potent first iteration.

Like Moon’s work, which was meant to speak to a “deeply personal yet universal relationship between mothers and children,” Ali Prosch’s Friendship Bracelets For Trees addresses what happens when the bond between a mother and child morphs into companionship beyond blood, rooted in a genuine affinity and even camaraderie. Prosch’s collaborator in this case is her young daughter, Lucy, with whom she’s created large-scale bracelets that wrap around three branches of the library’s oldest tree; the only one on the property that out-dates the library itself. Making friendship bracelets is an ancient practice, but was originally brought to the United States in the 1980’s to be worn during political protests before becoming a common symbol for strong and everlasting friendship. The roots of a tree become stronger when its environment supplies it with nutrients and warmth. They do not have a predetermined growth pattern and grow in a manner that reflects their environment. In the same way that a child will thrive in an environment in which they are understood, trees are best cared for once you understand its root growth, then provide them with what they need to continue to pullulate.

Perhaps the Amazon women took on a new form of existence. Perhaps their legacy lives on both through their genes and folklore, but also whenever anyone has come together, from abolitionists, to suffragists, to women’s social clubs and quilting bees. At the crux of What if the Matriarchy Was Here All Along? there is the idea that the matriarchy and other modes of existence such as the Amazon’s haven’t dissolved but rather permeated and existed, dotting the landscape like embers, ready to be nurtured into a fire. The works in this exhibition point to a journey toward this fire and invite the viewer to keep it burning.