Cannupa Hanska Luger

Artist as Social Engineer

February 2021 “.edu edition”

Discussion Guide:

Artist as Social Engineer

Summary:

Summary of Group Discussion

Exercise:

Something to Hold Onto

Select Readings:

Decolonization is Not a Metaphor by Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang

Accomplices Not Allies from indigenousaction.org

Do You Understand Restorative Justice? Neither Do We! from meztli projects

Indigenous Repatriation Handbook prepared by the Royal BC Museum and the Haida Gwaii Museum

Unsettling Settler Colonialism: The Discourse and Politics of Settlers, and Solidarity with Indigenous Nations by Corey Snelgrove and Rita Kaur Dhamoon and Jeff Corntassel

The Perception of the Environment (chapter 8) by Tim Ingold

About the topic

In a world polarized politically, economically, racially, and sexually we are forced to question our trust. We need one another now more than ever and our trust is the mortar that binds us. But how do we see eye to eye with human groups we don't trust? Enter the artist. If we can subvert the idea art is an object, a noun, then we can reinstate the truth that art is a verb, an action. By developing processes that include society as a medium in the act of making, we embed our communities in the outcomes and histories of those processes. People who may not typically engage with one another—whether because of differences or distances—become connected and create work together. In the field of ceramics, with its deep history of collective making, this is a particularly important tradition and contemporary approach for a more inclusive understanding of our past and future.

About the Lead Artist

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a multi-disciplinary artist of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota and European descent. Through monumental installations that incorporate ceramics, video, sound, fiber, steel and repurposed materials, Luger interweaves performance and political action to communicate stories about 21st century Indigeneity. Using social collaboration and in response to timely and site-specific issues, Luger produces multi-pronged projects which oftentimes presents a call to action, provoking diverse publics to engage with Indigenous peoples and values apart from the lens of colonial social structuring. Luger lectures and participates in residencies and projects around the globe and his work is collected internationally. He is a 2020 Creative Capital Award recipient, a 2019 Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Grant recipient and the recipient of the 2018 Museum of Arts and Design’s inaugural Burke Prize. Luger holds a BFA in studio arts from the Institute of American Indian Arts.