The top row, from left to right, shows 1. Nkyinkyim, watercolor, Annemarie Waugh, 25, Wooden stake symbols, Sylvester Manor, 25, 3. Africian Symbols, watercolor, Annemarie Waugh, 25, and Aerial photograph by Jess Paul. The bottom row, from left to right, shows 5. The boy’s & Girl’s club, Shinnecock Nation, 6. Thunderbird stake, 7. The Art Department, SBU and 8. Clay sculptures created at Gallery North. Please choose an image to see it in detail.
Bitterest Sweet, 2025, is a site-specific art installation presented as part of the Sculpture @ Sylvester Manor: Paradise Lost exhibition curated by Tom Cugliani. The exhibit opened on Shelter Island, NY, on June 14th, 2025, and will be free and open to the public until September 14th, 2025. The exhibit is open dawn to dusk, 7 days a week. Located at Sylvester Manor / 80 North Ferry Road / Shelter, Island, NY.

Bitterest Sweet is dedicated to the enslaved Africans, Indigenous Manhansett People, and the Irish and English indentured servants who lived, worked, and died at Sylvester Manor. Bitterest Sweet features a walkway in the shape of the Nkyinkyim ‘twisting’ symbol of the Adinkra, which represents the Gyaman people of Ghana and the Côte d'Ivoire. The Nkyinkyim is a symbol representing the torturous nature of life's journey and the toughness, versatility, and dynamism required to thrive in it. It is also a symbol of dedication to service. The wavy line, which forms the main component in the design of the Nkyinkyim, depicts the meandering course of life’s journey. These ‘twists and turns’ stand as a monument to the adaptability, resilience, and versatility of those who came before, who navigated through life's complexities with wisdom and strength. The proverb associated with this symbol is “Ɔbra kwan yɛ nkyinkyimii,” which, when translated, means “Life’s road is twisted.”

7. Walking the English Department, Stony Brook University.
The installation is three-dimensional and multimodal: a structural Nkyinkyim symbol outlined in native Bittersweet vines, newly fallen and foraged wood branches from the site, red-painted wooden stakes with African and Indigenous symbols, terracotta clay sculptures created in our community workshops and embedded in the grasses of the symbol, and a digital audio/sound walk. The symbol is 28 x 30 feet and will grow and change over the course of the 3 months.

The installation is also interactive, inviting visitors to walk the seven paths of the symbol while they behold the sculpture pieces and listen to the audio walk.

8. Walking the English Department, Stony Brook University.
The installation is also interactive, inviting visitors to walk the seven paths of the symbol while they behold the sculpture pieces and listen to the audio walk.

The installation is amplified by a digital audio walk, which is a combination of narrative script and original poetry, including literary works by Jupiter Hammon, Maya Angelou, Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, and Michelle Whittaker. The audio walk enhances the experience by allowing visitors to listen to the story of the enslaved Africans, the Indigenous Manhansett People, and Irish and English indentured servants who labored on Shelter Island. The story shared in the audio walk is heteroglossic in nature because it is not the story of a single person or a single group. Rather, it is an interconnected tapestry that weaves the experiences and challenges of various peoples. Thus, the recording is many-voiced, with people of different ages, accents, and genders reading various segments of the story. The audio walk is underscored by an original musical accompaniment composed by Tony Doyle, which captures the sounds of waves, the twitter of tropical birds, the sigh of the wind, African drums, fire, and the creak of ships. The audio walk can be accessed via QR codes

Bitterest Sweet Audio Script:

The agony of an untold story... the pain of history silenced....

Sylvester Manor, the 17ᵗʰ century property on Shelter Island is, for many an idyllic escape from the outside world. Yet, there is a darker history... a history that only recently has been highlighted. Bitterest Sweet is a biodegradable public art installation dedicated to sharing in the unveiling of that history. We invite you to walk the path of the Nkyinkym, an African indigenous symbol from the Akan people that represents the twisting and torturous journey of life. Inside the path of the Nkynkym are terracotta clay sculptures, created by members of the community across Long Island. These sculptures draw on African, Caribbean, and Native American symbols and represent the act of collective remembering and communal acknowledgment. As you walk the path, lend an ear to our sound walk that weaves history with poetry to tell the story of those whose labor was stolen and whose lives were oppressed. It is our goal to amplify the stories of the kidnapped enslaved Africans, the Manhansett people, and the indentured Irish and English who labored and died here. We hope that this project helps bring rest to the souls of those whose lives were oppressed in the name of money, power, and sugar... the bitterest of all sweets.

In 1652, Nathaniel Sylvester, a European slaveholder with sugar plantations in Barbados, laid claim to what is now known as Sylvester Manor on Shelter Island. Sylvester Manor was the ancestral property of the Manhansett people, yet Sylvester claimed to have purchased it from another Englishman. When he made his claim, the Manhansett people challenged him in court. Though the Manhansett won their suit and Sylvester had to pay them in sugar, they lost ownership of the land that was rightfully theirs.

A tiny place, twas all our own

This island we had long called home

Land handed down from ancestors past

our heritage and our history.

And then he came and staked his claim

To what was always ours

And though we challenged him and won

We lost our home.

Nathaniel Sylvester's arrival marked a dreadful shift in the island. He established it as a provisioning port, a place where trees were sacrificed and nature disrupted to make barrels to transport rum, molasses, and sugar.

Even more nefarious than his environmental degradation was the human cost of his ambition. Nathaniel and his wife Grizzell were slave masters, and they brought with them kidnapped enslaved Africans whose labor and lives they stole.

We walked the paths our fathers trod before us

warriors...chieftains.

Proud Black men and women.

We looked around our villages and saw the strength of who we

were reflected back at us

And then, one day, we were ripped from our homeland

and trafficked across the seas

Our freedom stolen

Our families shattered

Our identities twisted

By the shackles of slavery.

Through forced labor, Nathaniel Sylvester and his descendants built their manor house and other buildings on the grounds. They extracted the labor of kidnapped enslaved Africans to make the barrels and to keep the plantation running. The enslaved Africans were housed in the drafty attic. Records show that by Nathaniel Sylvester’s death, there were 24 enslaved Africans on Shelter Island. The practice of slavery continued for generations after Nathaniel Sylvester’s passing: Many enslaved Africans labored and died on Shelter Island. In the name of the almighty sugar... that bitterest sweet of them all...enslaved Africans, mainly from the Caribbean island of Barbados, were made to trade a tropical prison for a continental cage.

Dear Jesus unto Thee we cry,

And make our Lamentation:

O let our Prayers ascend on high;

We felt thy Salvation.

Lord turn our dark benighted Souls;

Give us a true Motion,

And let the Hearts of all the World,

Make Christ their Salvation.

Ten Thousand Angels cry to Thee,

Yea lourder than the Ocean.

Thou art the Lord, we plainly see;

Thou art the true Salvation.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.

In addition to the reprehensible practice of slavery, research indicates that the proprietors of Sylvester Manor also practiced indentured servitude. Manhansett people, English, and Irish settlers worked as indentured servants at Sylvester Manor, trading labor in exchange for housing, food, and the hope of eventual freedom.

‘Twas this,—how fair my life began;
How pleasant was its hour of dawn;
But, merging into sorrow’s day,
Then beauty faded with the morn.

Today, Sylvester Manor bears the markers of the life and death of the kidnapped Africans, the dispossessed Native Americans, and the indentured Irish whose labor established and sustained the plantation. An unmarked graveyard cradles the bones of enslaved African families, and pottery recovered from the earth testifies to the synthesis of African, Native American, and Irish workmanship.

Whether or not you are part of my ancestral Seas: from the North,
Irish & Caribbean — it’s not pretty trying to recall or forget the sale

of names - in borders & reports - about those who drowned, or swam
around screaming out, or those who took stamps, or those crimped,

attuning atop & below the salt water, and for those who lived,
where defeat railed as motors back to a “Heaven.” Maybe

God was working on intimidation & imitation Here
leading to resistance, like how music doesn’t really distract

from the back’s burnout during plantation, harvest, & reconstruction.
But Here, we are still, recalling & forgetting, enslaved in noise

as stilted yellers, sellers, buyers, surveyors & researchers.
To my Fathers who are missing like the native ecology in the marina–

To my Mothers who ebb and rise like plastics—I’m sorry.
Why are we most troubled & so troublesome?

\Thank you for walking the twisting path of the Nkyinkym. This sound walk was written, arranged, and directed by Neisha Terry Young, and includes excerpts from the poems “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ, with Penitential Cries” by Jupiter Hammon, “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou, “Morning on Shinnecock’ by Olivia Ward Bush-Banks, and “Spoke the Ancestral” by Michelle Whittaker. It also features music composed by Tony Doyle. The audio narration was performed by Joshua Young, Nathaniel Young, Maxwell Jones, Michelle Whittaker, Annemarie Waugh, and Neisha Terry Young.

We wish to acknowledge the support of Sylvester Manor, the English, art, and music departments at Stony Brook University, the VOICE Lab at Stony Brook University, the Boys and Girls Club of Shinnecock Nation, the Shelter Island School, The Church in Sag Harbor, Gallery North, Jeremy Dennis and Huntington Arts. We also wish to thank all our community participants from our workshops across Suffolk County. Permission for the audio use of a stanza from Maya Angelou's "Caged Bird published in SHAKER, WHY DON'T YOU SING, granted by Penguin Random House".

May this sound walk illuminate your knowledge of how the Atlantic slave trade and sugar impacted Shelter Island and the people who lived here…the bitterest sweet of them all.

9. Clay sculptures

Clay workshops:

May 14 - The VOICE Lab/Art Department @ Stony Brook University (SBU)
May 29 - The Shinnecock Nation, Boy’s & Girls Club
May 30 - Shelter Island School
May 31 - Gallery North
June 20 - The Church, Sag Harbor
July 28 - The English Department of SBU
August 5 - Shelter Island Summer Youth Program

A huge thank you to everyone who participated.

This work is supported by Long Island Grants for the Arts through funds provided by the office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and administered by The Huntington Arts Council.

Full Poems in Readings 1-4 →

About the Artists:

Neisha Terry Young, PhD., is a Jamaican immigrant to the United States. She is an Assistant Professor of English Education at Stony Brook University and Director of the VocalizED Identity Crafting and Exploration (VOICE) Research Lab, housed in the English department at Stony Brook University. Neisha Terry's research focuses on amplifying the authentic narratives of Black immigrants utilizing digital and other forms of multimodal literacies. Neisha Terry’s most recent works include publications on the affordances of podcasting for Black immigrant youth and a short film (Island Roots, Farrin’ Dreams) sharing the authentic narratives of Caribbean immigrants to the United States. This short film was shown as part of a larger exhibit at the Penn Museum in Philadelphia.

Annemarie Waugh is a British born, New York-based visual artist and educator working in painting, and installation. Her practice encompasses research based works, and public projects that involve community participation. Waugh has exhibited her work at venues including MoCA LI, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Patchogue, Christie’s and The Royal College of Art, London, Orchard Street Gallery, NYC, Front Street Gallery, Brooklyn, The Islip Museum, You + Me, Artist Films, Berlin, The Long Island Museum, Gallery North, Serendip Gallery, Japan, and Aferro Gallery, NJ, among others.

Michelle Whittaker is the author of poetry collections Surge which was awarded a Next Generation Indie Book Award (great weather for Media) and Spoke the Dark Matter (Sundress Publication). Her poems can be found in The New York Times Magazine, New Yorker, Shenandoah, Gulf Coast, Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series and other publications. She was awarded a NYFA fellowship in Poetry and Pushcart Prize Special Mention.