Description
My Name Is Alexander Hamilton, and There's A Million Native Names I Haven't Sung, currently on view in The Heckscher Museum of Art 2026 Long Island Biennial, curated by Dr, The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY, May 16, 2026 – September 13, 2026
This work responds to the cultural impact of Hamilton and its celebrated retelling of the American founding through a contemporary, racially diverse cast. While the musical broadened who could embody the Founding Fathers, it left unquestioned the absence of Indigenous peoples from the nation’s origin story.
The title echoes the musical’s opening line, transforming it into an indictment rather than an introduction. The phrase “a million Native names” gestures toward the hundreds of nations, leaders, women, and communities who existed long before 1776 and whose histories remain unsung in popular retellings of the Revolution. The work asks whether rewriting history with new faces is enough when the underlying narrative still centers colonial ambition, property, and nation-building at the expense of Indigenous life. Visibility without accountability, the image suggests, risks becoming another form of erasure.
