Space Camp 2000: Uncertainty, Speculative Fictions & Art

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Colleen Cutschall, Milky Way, Spirit Trail, 1996, acrylic and collage on canvas

Colleen Cutschall presents work as part of Space Camp 2000: Uncertainty, Speculative Fictions & Art, the Dunlop's extended investigation of fact, fiction, and imaginative writing. Cutschall's work is an essential complement to this discussion, as she has investigated the cosmologies of her Oglala Lakota ancestors for several years. The work in this exhibition is from a series under the title House Made Of Stars, exhibited first at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in 1996. She is an expert in Lakota myth which, as she shows, contains astronomical information. The painting Milky Way --- Spirit Trail (1996), depicts the Milky Way as the spirit trail followed by the dead. Faces in the painting are friends and acquaintances in her life that have passed away. The skulls represent the deceased that we have forgotten, ancestors. Cutschall lives in Brandon, Manitoba where she is Coordinator of the Visual Arts/Aboriginal Art Department. She is originally from Pine Ridge, South Dakota. She is Past President of the Native American Art Studies Association 1999 -- 2001 and was President from 1995 -- 1999.