The LaSells Stewart Center

Artist and activist Cannupa Hanska Luger is a native of North Dakota who was born on the Standing Rock Reservation. Luger creates socially conscious work, interweaving his identity as an American Indian with global issues. Of Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota, Austrian and Norwegian descent, Luger's unique, ceramic-centric, multidisciplinary artwork tells provocative stories of complex indigenous identities coming up against 21st century imperatives, including mediation and destruction. Using his art as a catalyst, Luger invites the public to challenge expectations and misinterpretations imposed upon indigenous people by historical and contemporary colonial social structures. His talk is titled,"They Need Us More Than We Need Them."