Logo of Lakota Emergence exhibition. Click on it for information about its design.
Opened May 2014 at
Dahl Arts Center, Rapid City, SD
2016 at South Dakota Art Museum, Brookings, SD
2016 at Journey Museum, Rapid City, SD
2017 at Akta Lakota Museum & Cultural Center, Chamberlain, SD
2018 at Plains Art Museum, Fargo, ND
2019 at Mobius Art Gallery, Bothell, WA
2019 at The Brinton Museum, Big Horn, WY
2019 at The Heritage Center, Pine Ridge, SD
Lakota Emergence is based on a traditional Lakotan narrative about when seven families of the Pte Oyate (Buffalo Nation), were enticed to forever leave their lower world homes by a devious scheme concocted by relatives who had earlier been banished to this upper world. The narrative, "How the Lakota Came Upon the World," was recorded by James Walker sometime between 1896, when he first arrived at Pine Ridge to serve as the agency's physician, and 1917, when it was published by the American Museum of Natural History. It is the only published account of that perilous journey undertaken by Lakotan ancestors.
The exhibit divided the 1,251-word narrative into 16 “passages” and paired each passage with a work by a distinguished or emerging Lakota artist which was linked to the passage. The artworks included abstract, expressionistic and representational paintings, a screen-printed collage, a ledger-style drawing, miniature and full-size clothing, a cut-glass mosaic, a bolo tie, a carved wood tableau and a spoon for the Trickster carved from a buffalo horn. Images of all exhibit artworks are presented in the online exhibit.
The emergence narrative explains why the place of emergence in what is now the Black Hills of South Dakota was and always will remain a site of special significance in Lakotan cosmology. The creative artworks featured in the Lakota Emergence exhibit vividly illustrate the vibrant diversity of Lakotan arts and artists today.