This is part of an exhibit on indigenous futurism at the Autry Museum of the American West, called Future Imaginaries. The pictures don’t do it justice, it’s very beautiful to see the stitches in person.

Here’s the information from the accompanying plaque:

Trek (Pleiades)

Marie Watt (Seneca Nation)

2014

Reclaimed wool blankets, satin binding, thread, and embroidery floss

The quilted pattern in Marie Watt’s Trek (Pleiades) echoes the nine diamond-like formations found in some Native basketry designs. The number nine also corresponds to the nine brightest stars of the constellation Pleiades, which derives its name from the Seven Sisters of Greek mythology, who were transformed into stars by Zeus to avoid the hunter Orion’s unwanted advances.

The Starship Enterprise, delicately embroidered over the diamond pattern, references both lengthy voyages found in Indigenous ancestral stories alongside modern space travel, each intersecting time and space, the historical and contemporary, the real and mythical.