Mohawk Repair Institute
Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts — Founded 2026
Studio · Nursery · Archive · Trail Network
Near the Mohawk Trail, Mohawk Repair Institute exists to restore the ecological and historical integrity of the upper Deerfield River watershed — through native plant propagation, truthful Indigenous land history education, and sculptural practice — and to make the tools of that restoration available to anyone willing to use them.
Who We Are
We occupy a historic building near the Mohawk Trail whose name was already Mohawk Repair when we arrived. We took it seriously — not as erasure, but as an unexpected invitation to repair.
The institute is a working studio, a native plant nursery, and an educational center. The outdoor grounds function as both demonstration garden and propagation nursery, growing the native species of the upper Deerfield watershed that form the biological foundation of repair. The studio produces sculptural work rooted in the ecology and material culture of this region. The interior archive holds the maps, historical documentation, ecological data, and educational resources that form the intellectual backbone of the work.
What We Repair
The Land
Native plant stock grown on site is made available for direct use on the Pocumtuck State Park trail network and surrounding public lands — displacing invasive species and returning the biological character of the watershed toward its pre-colonial baseline.
The Record
The Mohawk Trail takes its name from a history of conflict rather than from the actual Indigenous peoples of this territory. We honor the bronze Mohawk sculpture (installed in the late 1920s by the International Order of Red Men) as a teaching node — a visible reminder of how that era’s fraternal organizations romanticized and appropriated Native identity. At the same time, we are creating the name Hawk Trail as a new designation that reclaims sovereignty for the ancestral Pocumtuck, Nipmuc, Mohican, and Abenaki peoples who truly belong to this land. This name becomes one of the three central totems of Pocumtuck State Park — Hawk, Salamander, and Salmon — and will be marked by a major corten steel Hawk sculpture, elevated high where the old fiberglass “Big Indian” once stood before it was removed to Oklahoma. That sculpture, along with the Greylock piece and the larger cascade vision, forms the sculptural spine of the park.
The Knowledge
The archive makes the playbook accessible. Every activity — trail restoration, species identification, historical research, land stewardship — has an entry point here. People choose their level of engagement and take the tools they need.
The Story
Sculptural work sited across the property and at nodes along the trail network makes the ecological and cultural argument in physical form — placing the true history of the land back into the landscape it belongs to.
The Playbook
Mohawk Repair Institute does not ask permission to repair what was broken. It provides the species, the maps, the historical record (including the complicated legacy of the Mohawk name and sculpture), and the methodology — and invites anyone who walks through the door, or onto the trail, to participate. The work is modular. A person can pull invasives for an afternoon or commit to a multi-year restoration corridor. The institute supports both with equal seriousness.
Development proceeds in phases. The studio and nursery are soon to be operational. The archive buildout and trail network activation will expand as the program grows. Nonprofit formation and grant funding will support environmental remediation, facility development, and ongoing educational programming.
The Extended Campus
The Pocumtuck State Park trail network is MRI’s living classroom and working landscape — the place where the native plants grown on site go into the ground, where historical documentation becomes legible in the field, and where sculptural nodes will eventually mark the Indigenous sites and ecological thresholds that give this territory its true character. The studio is the base. The watershed is the campus.
Mohawk Repair Institute
Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts — Founded 2026
John F. Sendelbach
Sculptor, Fabricator, Landscape Designer, Founder
"The name was already on the building. We took it seriously.
