The Sioux Project--Tatanka Oyate
By: edited by Dana Claxton
Contributors: Robertson, Carmen, curator; MacKenzie Art Gallery
Publisher: Information Office; MacKenzie Art Gallery
Published: 2020
Place of publication: Vancouver, BC; Regina, SK, Canada
Language: eng
Number of pages: 187
ISBN-13: 9781988860053
Subjects: Indigenous art; Exhibitions; Film installations (Art)
Other titles: Tatanka Oyate
Description: "Tatanka Oyate fills a major gap in our understanding of contemporary Sioux aesthetics in North America with a specific focus on the knowledge and practices of Lakota/Nakota/Dakota (Sioux) communities in Saskatchewan, Canada. The publication reflects over three years of on-the-ground research involving a team led by Lakota video/performance artist Dana Claxton, art historian Lynne Bell, artist Gwenda Yuzicappi, and filmmaker Cowboy Smithx. The video footage gathered over the course of multiple visits to Sioux communities across Saskatchewan formed the basis of Claxton's four-channel video installation at the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, Saskatchewan in 2017. Essays by Bell, Smithx, and MacKenzie Head Curator Timothy Long, as well excerpts from video interviews with community participants, speak to the community-based methodology of this research-creation project and the significance of Claxton's installation. Densely illustrated with stills and in-situ shots of the installation, the texts offer a moving community portrait of how the traditional knowledge of elders is being actively transmitted to and translated by a generation that is as comfortable with video mashups as they are with star quilts and beadwork. Produced for academic, artistic and broader communities, the publication includes a consideration of how Sioux aesthetics have been defined by communities and artists in North America, both historically and in the contemporary period, in essays by leading Indigenous scholars, Janet Catherine Berlo, Bea Medicine and Carmen Robertson. The historical background for the presence of Tatanka Oyate, the "Buffalo Nation," in western Canada is provided in a chronology by historian David R. Miller.."--
Notes: Co-published by MacKenzie Art Gallery.

"Published in conjunction with the exhibition Dana Claxton: The Sioux Project--Tatanka Oyate, MacKenzie Art Gallery, September 30- 2017 to January 7, 2018. Curated by Carmen Robertson."--Colophon.
Table of contents: title: Director's Foreword / Anthony Kiendl; title: The Sioux Project: Tatanka Oyate; title: The Buffalo People / Lynne Bell; title: Beauty, Abundance, Generosity, and Performance: Sioux Aesthetics in Historical Context / Janet Catherine Berlo; title: Dakota/Lakota Chronology / David R. Miller; title: Dana Claxton's Time Machine / Timothy Long; title: The Sioux Project: A Journey Through Generations / Cowboy Smithx; title: Lakota Views of "Art" and Artistic Expression / Bea Medicine; title: Visual Histories/Contemporary Stories / Carmen Robertson; title: List of Dakota/Lakota/Nakota First Nations in Canada; title: Excerpts from Video Interviews; title: Selected Sioux Bibliography; title: List of Illustrations; title: Contributor Biographies; title: Acknowledgements & Credits.