Read more about the Cenotaph & Ceremonial Space, Artist's Bio

Bob Haozous (Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache Tribe of Oklahoma)

“With my people, as with other Native Nations, the traditional method of honoring is with an object or image respectfully acknowledging the involved participants and their history. Sited near the original trading and funeral grounds of Fort Brooke, Ceremonial Space is a not simply a place for reflection of the peoples of the past who lived, fought and died here, but intended to provide a place for present and future generations to contemplate our responsibilities to and for all things that make up our own life experience.

Canopied in stainless steel representations of branches of separate cypress trees stationed at the four cardinal directions, the space reminds us of the use of cypress trunk foundations for Seminole chickee home, and the close ties that the Seminole people and those animals and birds of the wetlands have historically had to the cypress tree. Just as the wetlands cypress, the branches allows the sun to shine through to those underneath while at the same time the protective layer of the cypress roots provide a protection from its full powers. The structure reminds us of the wonders of our technology while at the same time allows us to look outward to the immensity of the natural beauty that surrounds the structure.

The sacred circle unifies each of us to each other in a continuum of responsibility. In the center is the traditional sacred fire mound known to those indigenous peoples who both remain here and at relocations elsewhere, as a place into which the past can be cast and a renewal can be ignited (in this case, plants indigenous to Seminole livelihood have been placed). It represents a place of balance and harmony. The whole community becomes keepers of the flame of continued renewal from the past and commitment to a better future. The fire is guarded by “grandfather rocks” positioned as persons at the four directions.

My intent is to present a unifying space that offers a place to contemplate this wisdom and responsibility of a more meaningful relationship to nature and place and each other. Native Americans hold that their responsibility is to a long-range or seventh -generational understanding of responsibility. Not ignoring the past, but learning from it. This continual relationship demands intentional maintenance and continual preparation of that place for the future.”

Read more about:
Cenotaph & Ceremonial Space
Artist's Bio