HESSE FLATOW presents Mekko Harjo: From a state of sleep, a site-specific installation marking the artist's first solo presentation with the gallery. The last fluent Quapaw speaker passed away in 2022 — the same year Harjo, a Quapaw Nation member raised outside its language, began incorporating Quapaw words into his practice. A former DJ in New York's nightlife, Harjo brings questions of time, recurrence, and collective gathering to an installation that moves through the gallery like a circuit: a muted television of Harjo mouthing Quapaw syllables, a microphone straining toward silence, a clay vessel suspended between states, a radio emitting dialogue between Harjo and his father, and fans whose LED blades spell untranslated Quapaw words. Together, the works hold language in a state of potential — neither lost nor fully recovered.
