Dana Claxton: The Sioux Project / Tatanka Oyate
September 30, 2017 to January 7, 2018
Symposium: Saturday, September 30, 2017
Dana Claxton: The Sioux Project / Tatanka Oyate (2017) is the first art exhibition to explore contemporary Sioux aesthetics in Saskatchewan. In this new work, Hunkpapa Lakota artist Dana Claxton claims the term Sioux for Lakota, Dakota, and Nakota peoples as she dedicates herself to a careful analysis of contemporary Sioux relationships to the land. She does this by projecting interconnected stories onto four circular canvas screens. Viewers are invited into the circle to consider the many dialogues presented from hours of digital video footage and still photographs collected from a series of workshops she and Cowboy Smithx held with Sioux youth from Standing Buffalo and White Cap First Nations.
Stitched together from interviews with artists, cultural practitioners, and elders, Claxton interrogates popular culture’s tropes and romantic notions of landscape with the assemblage of diverse images and experiences. The resulting installation delivers visual stories and images that thoughtfully consider beauty in relation to intergenerational knowledge and the dispersal of Sioux peoples throughout Saskatchewan.
Symposium: Saturday, September 30, 2017
***Register by September 25 for complimentary lunch
To register, contact Janine Windolph, Adjunct Curator of Public Programs
SCHEDULE
Friday, September 29, 2017
3:00 to 5:30 PM | Sneak Peak Tour of Gallery for youth from Whitecap Dakota First Nation
5:30 to 6:30 PM | Public BBQ and Opening Celebrations
7:30 to 10:00 PM | Public Opening Reception with Artists
Saturday, September 30, 2017
9:30 to 10:00 AM | Registration and Coffee
10:00 to 11:00 AM | Welcome by Elder Harland Goodtrack with Keynote: Patricia Goodwill
11:00 AM to 12:00 PM | Panel 1: Sioux Aesthetics, Methods, and Pedagogy
MODERATOR: Dr. Carmen Robertson
PANELISTS: Dana Claxton, Lynne Bell, Gwenda Yuzicappi
12:00 to 1:00 PM | Lunch
1:00 to 2:00 PM | Panel 2: Storytelling and Video
MODERATOR: Dana Claxton
PANELISTS: Janine Windolph, Cowboy SmithX, Jules Arita Koostachin
2:00 to 2:30 PM | Nutrition Break
2:30 to 3:30 PM | Key Note: Dr. Janet Berlo | Two Hundred Years of Sioux Art and Aesthetics
Sunday, October 1st, 2017
2:00 to 4:00 PM | Special Family Sunday Workshop with Buffalo People Arts Institute
Organized by MacKenzie Art Gallery with support from Canada Council for the Arts, SaskCulture, Saskatchewan Arts Board, City of Regina, University of Regina, and South Saskatchewan Community Foundation. Additional support from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and University of British Columbia Department of Art History, Visual Art & Theory.
