An etched image of a wampum belt—quahog beads strung into symbolic or pictographic belts to record significant events—appears to float within a hard Lucite block, inscribed above with “immune.” The belt is distanced from us, evoking yet denying its own tactility, as if it were locked behind the glass of a museum cabinet or floating below the surface of water. For the artist, who grew up around Lake Superior, water is endowed with overwhelming power to transform topography: as a natural element that can reduce mountainsto sand over the eons, and a political force that can divide nations, incite conflict and spur industrial development.