Photos by Angie Stong
By Cherrelle Rand
Friday afternoon, the SCAD Museum hosted “Heads Above Grass: Provocative Native American Public Art and Studio Practice,” an event where acclaimed and award-winning multi-media artist Hock E Aye VI Edgar Heap of Birds came to discuss his body of work. His work has been exhibited in the National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution and the Venice Biennale, The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of America Art.
Heap of Birds was was born in 1954 in Wichita, Kansas, and comes from the Cheyenne and Arapaho nations. He’s currently a professor at the University of Oklahoma where he teaches Native American studies and fine arts. He has also taught as a visiting professor at Rhode Island School of Design, University of Cape Town and Yale University.
He began his talk, which was moderated by foundations Professor Christopher Olszewski, who himself is Anishinaabe and Polish, by thanking the college and making various announcements.
“It’s always certainly traditional to make an offering,” Heap of Birds said. He held up a card with an image of one the vases he made in Murano, Italy, and explained that in honor of professor Olszewski, he would sign and give away a series of posters.
“In my tradition you honor somebody by giving away presents,” said Heap of Birds.
He continued on, showing a photo of a Native woman holding a child. Heap of Birds explained that the woman in the photo was Grace Bigbear, and then showed a photo of his grandmother, Lightning Woman. He did this to acknowledge and dedicate his talk to Native women.
“That’s sort of the beginning and the end of everything, you know, the Native women who take care, who bring the life to the world,” he said.
He read a text from a 14-year-old Cheyenne girl named Moving Behind who survived the Washita Massacre.The discussion of his work began when he showed a series of prints he did. One piece read “Indian Still Target Obama Bin Laden Geronimo,” which is based off the covert military operation in which the terrorist Osama Bin Laden was given the codename Geronimo, an Apache name and most recognized as belonging to the famous Apache leader who spent the majority of his life fighting white colonization. When news came back to the Situation Room, President Obama and Hilary Clinton both cheered when they heard “Geronimo was dead.”
Said Heap of Birds, “It’s very important to have native people to identify themselves, and not be used for terrorist emblems.”
It’s these type of text-based art pieces that Heap of Birds is known for. But it’s his outdoor installation “Native Host,” a series of large metal, billboard-like signs used to indicate Native territory. He has recently placed them in the Virgin Islands.
During the Q&A session after the presentation, Foundations Professor Krista Harberson-Fisher asked, “One of the things we face a great deal of is how to convey to our students the difference between the appreciation and honoring of Indigenous tribes verses cultural imperialism? Taking things from say indigenous tribal cultures without any prior knowledge of their meaning, their significance. How do you convey to your students the best way to honor something versus being exploitative?”
“It’s all about…culture is a possession of a people. Culture is not just an image — it’s someone’s identity their family. You can’t play with it; you have to get permission to engage it,” said Heap of Birds. “It’s very important, I think, that anyone, anywhere should be a member of their own community and should have knowledge of their family, their extended family, what they experienced.”
“I think you should come if you want to engage with another culture with knowledge of your own,” he continued. “You have something to share so it’s an exchange. The first step is to know your own.”
