Pop-Up Installation
July 13 – August 10, 2024
Exploring human geography, genealogy, and language, The Tidal River Reverses Flow centers on family, history, and the desire to cultivate a relationship with the 10-mile radius encircling the midpoint of the Connecticut Thames (Pequot) River, the brackish waters of tidal estuaries, and the people who came before.
Spurred by curiosity about wooden birds carved by her great-great grandfather in the Mohegan tradition, artist Chloe Atreya embarked on a project of discovery. “I conceived this work as a ceremony to remediate internalized rootlessness,” she recalls. “By sewing my maternal ancestors into the places that hold their stories, I work to counter intergenerational trauma and erasure.” Using experimental design and symbolic mark-making, Atreya represents 234 DNA-transmitting relatives spanning 15 generations, including women whose names have been lost. Like a tidal river reversing flow, Atreya produced this piece moving backward in time, starting with her mother and looking back over 500 years.
Chloe E. Atreya, The Tidal River Reverses Flow, 2023. Mixed media on paper, 30.5 x 25 inches, accompanied by a cloth-bound legend, 7.5 x 11.5 inches, and cedar birds carved ca. 1950 by the artist’s great, great grandfather, Henry Hammond Fowler (1866-1958), 4.5 to 6 inches tall. Images courtesy of Chloe Jackman Photography.
About the Artist
Chloe E. Atreya is a multiracial artist and physician-scientist currently based in San Francisco, California, who previously lived and worked in New Haven, Connecticut. As an oncologist caring for people with advanced cancer, she often thinks about the ripple effects that extend through multiple generations. She sews into her artwork as a healing practice.