THE SIOUX PROJECT TATANKA OYATE
- Author Name: Dana Claxton
- Award Year: 2022
- Publisher: The MacKenzie Art Gallery & Information Office
- Publication Date: 2021
- ISBN: 978-1-988860-05-3
- Author Website: https://www.danaclaxton.com/
About the Book
The basis for Claxton’s installation in The Sioux Project — Tatanka Oyate was conceived from a 3-year-long research project. A series of workshops were held with Sioux youth from Saskatchewan, including Standing Buffalo and White Cap First Nations, bringing together youth, knowledge-keepers, artists, scholars, curators, and students. Gathering and editing hours of collected footage and images featuring interviews with artists, cultural practitioners, and elders, the projected assembled a dynamic dialogue on Sioux art and culture—considering beauty in relation to intergenerational knowledge and the dispersal of Buffalo People. Filling a major gap in our understanding of contemporary Sioux aesthetics, this publication speaks to the community-based methodology of this research-creation project, and the significance of the exhibition. The catalogue was created in collaboration by artist Dana Claxton, historian Lynne Bell, artist Gwenda Yuzicappi, and filmmaker Cowboy Smithx. Featuring essays from Bell, Smithx, and MacKenzie Art Gallery Head Curator, Timothy Long, this piece also presents excerpts from community members that made this publication possible.
About the Author
Dana Claxton is a critically acclaimed, interdisciplinary, and international exhibiting artist whose work includes film and video, installation, performance, photography, and curating. Born in Yorkton, Saskatchewan, Claxton is from Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation. Her practice investigates indigenous beauty, the body, the socio-political and the spiritual. Claxton’s work has exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) and Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (NYC), the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis (Minneapolis, MN), the Sundance Film Festival (UT), Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Indianapolis (IN), and the Museum of Contemporary Art (Sydney, AU). Her work is included in major collections such as the MacKenzie Art Gallery, National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, and Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the Audain Museum. he has received numerous awards including the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (2020), the Scotiabank Photography Award (2020), the VIVA Award, the Eiteljorg Fellowship, the Hnatyshyn Award, and the YWCA Women of Distinction Award. She is Head and a Professor in the Department of Art History, Visual Art and Theory with the University of British Columbia, and she resides in Vancouver Canada.