The Ramapough Lenape Nation has lived in the hills of Northern Jersey since before the last Ice Age, but like all Indigenous peoples in the U.S., their connection to their land is constantly contested and eroded. A Museum of the Ramapough Nation should therefore stake a lasting claim on their ancestral land. The design proposes quarrying a massive half-moon of granite bedrock from the side of the mountain and then moving it across a circle to form the western edge of a now bounded field. Cut & Fill becomes Cut & Cairn: the museum is built up out of stacked dimension stone, while the leveled gathering ground becomes the site for prayer, protest, and Powwow.
