“Purchase is a set of copper lockpicks handmade and engraved by me. Each pick is engraved with text from provenance cards I viewed at the Museum of Natural History in New York prior to visiting objects held in the collection. The words engraved in English include ‘collected from shaman’s grave’ ‘primitive art,’ ‘purchase,’ and ‘ceremonial hat from grave.’ Each piece of text points sharply to the history of theft labeled as collection, and of coerced exchange due to dire conditions enforced by the ‘buyer’ upon the ‘seller’ being labeled as purchase.

Incised into lockpicks the words become rejoinders to the institutions and collections built on this kind of collection and purchase, which is nearly all of them. They are more than that though, resting on a leather tool roll, unfolded, and splayed out ready for use. They are suggestive, instructive even. Suggestive that knowledge can increase agency, that the rules institutional display cases are built with were never applied to those who built the containers separating Indigenous people from the cultural objects they belong with. Instructive that locks can be picked.”

— Nicholas Galanin on Purchase