Each/Other
Cannupa Hanska Luger & Marie Watt
What would the world look like if, as humans, we thought of ourselves as companion species? Can acts of creative collaboration help heal broken bonds with the environment and each other? Artists Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marie Watt invited the public to consider these questions while contributing to the physical manifestation of a large-scale sculptural installation. Through national and international participation, the artwork created is a monument to collective relationships and collaborative handwork, bringing audiences into a tactile encounter with critically relevant issues of protection, shelter, reciprocity, sustenance, exchange, power, action, stewardship, wildness, kinship, vulnerability, and ferocity.
During 2020 - 2021 Cannupa Hanska Luger and Marie Watt were in residence at Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation’s rural campus at Camp Colton, Oregon for several in person stays with their families. During their August 2020 residency visit they partnered with the Native Arts and Cultures Foundation to create a video call to action for the collaborative sculpture project Each/Other, inviting communities from around the world to embroider a message onto a bandana and send them to the artists, who incorporated the fabric into the hide of the large-scale sculpture.
This work premiered for the two person exhibition of the same tile - Each/Other - at the Denver Art Museum in the fall of 2021. The artists completed this new monumental collaborative sculpture onsite at Camp Colton with the support of metal fabricator Neil Fagan, the Portland Garment Factory and with the unwavering support of the teams at Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation, Denver Art Museum, Camp Colton and the artists families.
Building Each/Other at Camp Colton -
Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation
Exhibition
Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger
Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger is the first exhibition to feature together the work of Watt and Luger, two leading Indigenous contemporary artists whose processes focus on collaborative artmaking.
Exploring the collective process of creation, Each/Other exhibition featured 26 mixed media sculptures, wall hangings and large-scale installation works by Watt (Seneca and German-Scots) and Luger (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Lakota and European), along with the new monumental artist-guided community artwork, Each/Other. While each artist’s practice is rooted in collaboration, they have never before worked together or been exhibited alongside one another in a way that allows audiences to see both the similarities and contrasts in their work. Following its premier presentation at the Denver Art Museum, Each/Other traveled to the Michael C. Carlos Museum at Emory University, Georgia and to the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts.
“Art is a verb, not a noun. Art is a practice, it’s an activity. It is an action.”
— Cannupa Hanska Luger
Each/Other: Marie Watt and Cannupa Hanska Luger
Exhibited May 23, 2021 – August 22, 2021
At the Denver Art Museum
Gather: Marie Watt + Cannupa Hanska Luger featuring Each/Other Monumental she-wolf soft sculpture made with a collapsable steel armature base, ceramic eyes and repurposed fabric undercoat of the pelt adorned with over 800 embroidered bandanas sourced from communities across the world. Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation Core Residency closing exhibiton, 2022.
Gather: Marie Watt + Cannupa Hanska Luger featuring Each/Other Monumental she-wolf soft sculpture made with a collapsable steel armature base, ceramic eyes and repurposed fabric undercoat of the pelt adorned with over 800 embroidered bandanas sourced from communities across the world. Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation Core Residency closing exhibiton, 2022.
Gather: Marie Watt + Cannupa Hanska Luger featuring Each/Other Monumental she-wolf soft sculpture made with a collapsable steel armature base, ceramic eyes and repurposed fabric undercoat of the pelt adorned with over 800 embroidered bandanas sourced from communities across the world. Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation Core Residency closing exhibiton, 2022.
Gather: Marie Watt + Cannupa Hanska Luger featuring Each/Other Monumental she-wolf soft sculpture made with a collapsable steel armature base, ceramic eyes and repurposed fabric undercoat of the pelt adorned with over 800 embroidered bandanas sourced from communities across the world. Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation Core Residency closing exhibiton, 2022.
Gather: Marie Watt + Cannupa Hanska Luger featuring Each/Other Monumental she-wolf soft sculpture made with a collapsable steel armature base, ceramic eyes and repurposed fabric undercoat of the pelt adorned with over 800 embroidered bandanas sourced from communities across the world. Stelo Arts and Culture Foundation Core Residency closing exhibiton, 2022.