Raised on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, interdisciplinary artist Cannupa Hanska Luger works in sculpture and installation and indigenous futurism. Rooted in the traditions of generations before him, learning clay work from Indigenous elders, welding from his parents, and sewing from his relatives, he interweaves performance and political action, provoking diverse audiences to engage with Indigenous peoples and values apart from mainstream America. At times the work presents a call to action to protect land from capitalist exploits; at other times it brings people together for a shared experience of future-dreaming. He is reimagining how performance can be engaged from an Indigenous perspective with the land as his sacred stage and the sky his audience. When working directly with the land and without viewers, he video-documents his actions which he views as both respecting the ceremony of performance and the lands engaged while broadly transmitting his ideas to widening circles of audience.

photo: Gabe Fermin