Indigenous Futurisms in VR
@ John Crerar Library
5730 S Ellis Ave, Chicago, IL 60637
Opening Thursday, November 14th, from 4PM - 9PM
On view through Friday, November 15th
Exhibition Hours: Thu, Nov 14, 4-9pm; Fri, Nov 15, 12-5pm
Drop in any time during exhibition hours. We can accommodate four viewers at a time.
In 2017, as many Canadians were celebrating the nation’s 150th birthday, several Indigenous VR artists were looking 150 more years into the future. Opposing racist representational conventions that relegate Indigenous life to the past tense, these four virtual reality artworks center Indigenous peoples in the radical futures they envision. Postcommodity’s “Each Branch Determined” imagines a technologized landscape reclaimed by Indigenous and Xicano pueblos in New Mexico; Scott Benesiinaabandan’s “Blueberry Pie Under a Martian Sky” actualizes the Anishinaabe prophecy that a child will return to the stars through a wormhole woven by Spider Woman; Danis Goulet’s “The Hunt” conjures a postapocalyptic future in which a fleet of robotic orbs threaten Mohawk sovereignty; and Kent Monkman’s “Honour Dance” reinterprets a two-spirit ritual that challenged colonial gender norms centuries ago. Pushing the boundaries of VR in new directions, these artists draw on Indigenous futurisms to create worlds against and beyond the colonial present. Curated by Sasha Crawford-Holland (CMS) as part of the Graduate Student Curatorial Program.
(2017, 22 min., 360-degree VR)
Co-sponsored by the Film Studies Center, the Hack Arts Lab, the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture, the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture, and the Nicholson Center for British Studies.
Hack Arts Lab, Crerar Library, 5730 S. Ellis Ave.
This event is free and open to the public. We are committed to making this event an inclusive and accessible environment. Please contact maddcenter@uchicago.edu if there are ways that we can help to facilitate your participation.
The University of Chicago is located on the traditional territories of the Council of Three Fires–the Odawa, Ojibwe, and Potawatomi nations. Despite centuries of ongoing colonial violence, tens of thousands of Indigenous people continue to call Chicago home.
Official Website
More events on this date
Tags: Center for the Study of Race Politics and Culture, Chicago, Danis Goulet, Film Studies Center, Hyde Park, Indigenous Futurisms in VR, John Crerar Library, Kent Monkman, Sasha Crawford-Holland, Scott Benesiinaabandan
« previous event
next event »