“Mįhą́pmąk”  is a solo exhibition of 2020 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellow Cannupa Hanska Luger’s ongoing work to recover and re-establish his ancestral Mandan clay traditions. The Mandan people of what is now known as North Dakota are the original inhabitants of the clay-rich lands that stretch over the Missouri River basin and across the plains. Their centuries-old clay traditions and technologies range from functional vessels to earth-built homes. Colonialism decimated Mandan populations in the 18th century and Luger’s grant-funded artistic research is an urgent response to recover this critical indigenous knowledge.

The exhibition includes ceramics, research ephemera, and documentation from the past two years of his ongoing investigation, which ​​was conducted in museum collections, in the cut banks and clay veins of the Fort Berthold Reservation, with community elders, and through the materiality of the clay itself, asserting the role of the artist-researcher in rebuilding and creating knowledge. The exhibition’s title, “Mįhą́pmąk,”  translates from  Mandan language to “nowadays (in modern times)” and “here we are.” This word is a declaration of presence and resilience.

Considering his research process, the artist notes: “After digging, processing, testing, firing, observing, destroying, pulverizing, and making with clay over two years, I have only begun to understand the complex ancestral technologies of my Mandan ancestors. Yet, a memory has been woken in my muscles — I am at the beginning — honoring the knowledge of before, the experimentation of the present, and practicing a way forward for future generations of my people. My hope is that [this research] provides reflection to possible experiences for Indigenous people of my heritage to reacquaint themselves with clay.” Luger’s research demonstrates a living continuum of Indigenous clay experience by communing with ancestral knowledge and integrating it with contemporary technologies and practices that are geared toward the future.

‍Cannupa Hanska Luger is the recipient of the Center for Craft’s 2020 Craft Research Fund Artist Fellowship. Each year this substantial mid-career grant is awarded to two artists to support research projects that advance, expand, and support the creation of new research and knowledge through craft practice.