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Join us for the opening program for SURVIVA, including a conversation with artist Cannupa Hanska and American Art Museum curator Saisha Grayson, live painting performance and book signing.
Live painting performance by the artist: 3:00-5:00 p.m., Great Hall
Artist Conversation and Book Signing: 6:00-7:30 p.m., New Books
Please join artist Cannupa Hanska Luger in conversation with Saisha Grayson, Curator of Time-Based Media, Smithsonian American Art Museum, for a discussion of the artist's new book and exhibition at the MLK Library, SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide.
They will discuss Luger's new book as well as the ethos behind the artist's Future Ancestral Technologies series, which incorporates video, installation art, regalia, science fiction, poetry, and much more. Through this book, and the broader evolving multimedia project, Luger challenges our collective thinking – imagining a post-capitalist, post-colonial future where humans restore their bonds with the earth and each other.
This program is presented in collaboration with For Freedoms, an artist-led organization deepening civic engagement through the arts.
Registration is encouraged.
Note: this event will be recorded. Please register to receive the recording link after the event.
This event takes place in the Great Hall (3:00-5:00 pm, performance) and New Books (6:00-7:30 pm, artist talk).
SURVIVA is an exhibition accompanied by a book launch, performance, and artist talk by multimedia artist Cannupa Hanska Luger, whose work communicates urgent stories of twenty-first century Indigeneity. The exhibit will engage the public with two large-scale banners, along with an installation centered on a 1970s military survival guide that inspired Luger's innovative new art book, SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide, forthcoming this fall from the new imprint Aora Books. Part graphic novel, part art book, SURVIVA features a 1970s military survival guide that has been creatively repurposed by the artist, using elements of poetic redaction, speculative fiction, and iterative line drawing. Luger shared that both the book and the installation present “an earth-based, demilitarized futuredream that foregrounds Indigenous knowledge as critical to humanity’s survival.” SURVIVA: A Future Ancestral Field Guide will be available for purchase and signing at the MLK Library opening program on July 1st, and in bookstores everywhere from September 2, 2025.
Cannupa Hanska Luger is an award-winning artist and cultural innovator who creates monumental installations, sculpture, and performance to communicate urgent stories of twenty-first century lndigeneity. Born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, Luger is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and is Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, and Lakota. With a socially-engaged creative practice spanning public art, large-scale installation, ceramic sculpture, performance, video, writing, and land-based actions of repair, Luger’s work combines critical cultural analysis with Indigenous advocacy, and respect for the diverse materials, environments, and communities he engages. His work is in numerous permanent museum collections and has been exhibited around the world. Luger has been featured on the cover of National Geographic Magazine, profiled in The New York Times Magazine and Art21 and he is the recipient of numerous honors and awards for his groundbreaking work.
Learn more on the exhibit website.
AGE GROUP: | Seniors | Adults | 13 - 19 Years Old (Teens) |
EVENT TYPE: | Lecture | Family Program | Exhibit | Educational Program | Book Club | Author Talk | Arts & Crafts |
