The shape of Shan Goshorn’s The Fire Within references the Cherokee Nation’s seven-pointed star. This star serves as a prominent design on their governmental seal that represents both their seven clans as well as the seven characters of Cherokee syllabary ᏣᎳᎩᎯ ᎠᏰᎵ that spell Cherokee Nation. Woven from paper, the exterior bears the names of students who attended the Carlisle Indian Boarding School in Pennsylvania (est. 1879), which operated for 39 years as one of many brutal institutions created by the United States government to enact cultural genocide. The Fire Within also incorporates text from The Indian Removal Act of 1830, a decree that led to the forced displacement of approximately 60,000 Native people of several nations. The interior of the basket embodies an eternal flame, symbolic of tribal continuity and connections between the past and future.