Cannupa Hanska Luger: You're Welcome

COMING SOON

Cannupa Hanska Luger
You’re Welcome

Presented in collaboration with Monument Lab
With support from the U-M Arts Initiative

Curators
Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art at UMMA
Paul Farber, Director and Co-founder of Monument Lab

On View
September 22, 2023 — February 18, 2024

Pictured from left to right Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art at UMMA; Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger; and Paul Farber, Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab surrounded by the architecture of Alumni Memorial Hall at the U-M Museum of Art. Photo by Ian John Solomon

Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art at UMMA; Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger; and Paul Farber, Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab surrounded by the architecture of Alumni Memorial Hall at the U-M Museum of Art. Photo by Ian John Solomon

How Do We Remember?

Memories are deeply embedded in the physical structures of modern day society — our neighborhoods, our laws, our monuments, our buildings — but those memories are often sculpted and built into those structures by a privileged few. How have their perspectives shaped the enduring stories of our history and visions of the past?

You’re Welcome is a three-part installation and dynamic intervention that exposes the histories and narratives of the land occupied by the University of Michigan and UMMA’s neoclassical building, Alumni Memorial Hall. A large-scale commission from artist Cannupa Hanska Luger on the exterior of UMMA’s building asks the campus and community to reconsider the memories molded into the Museum’s stone — the perspectives that shaped those traditions and the stories that remain unseen in our facade. This artistic interrogation dissects colonialist norms of monument-making, explores the roles of buildings in upholding selected cultural systems, and develops new forms of memorials that center Indigenous perspectives and collaboration to tell fuller stories and histories.

Luger communicates stories of 21st-century Indigeneity, sovereignty, and anti-colonialism while offering critical cultural analysis through deep engagements with materials, environments, and communities. In addition to the exterior commission, a gallery exhibition places Luger’s works of art in conversation with objects in UMMA’s collection, allowing for discussion and thinking on long histories of collecting practices, environmental degradation, and the afterlife of colonialism. And, a monument classroom from nonprofit public art and history studio Monument Lab invites the community to come together and examine how historic structures on the University of Michigan’s campus uphold social and cultural systems and narratives.

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A person’s cultural context allows them to see things others don’t see – myth generation and storytelling links cultures to cultures and perspectives to perspectives

- Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger

About the Exhibition

About the Team

Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger

Multidisciplinary artist Cannupa Hanska Luger is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara), and Lakota. Through monumental installations and social collaborations that reflect a deep engagement and respect for materials, the environment, and community, Luger activates speculative fiction and communicates stories about 21st century Indigeneity. Luger is a 2022 Guggenheim fellow, recipient of the 2021 United States Artists Fellowship Award for Craft, and was named a Grist 50 Fixer for 2021, a list that includes emerging leaders in climate, sustainability, and equity from across the nation.

More About the Artist

Artist Cannupa Hanska Luger wearing a blue short sleeve button up and grey pants surrounded by the architecture of Alumni Memorial Hall at the U-M Museum of Art. Photo by Liz Barney

Photo by Liz Barney

UMMA Curator Ozi Uduma

UMMA Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art Ozi Uduma is a graduate of the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, and double majored in Anthropology and Afroamerican and African Studies. She has worked with UMMA since 2018, first as a curatorial assistant to Laura De Becker, UMMA Helmut and Candis Stern Curator of African Art, and was promoted to assistant curator in 2020. Uduma curated the Unsettling Histories (2021) exhibition and served as curator for UMMA’s presentation of Romare Bearden: Abstraction (2022). She co-curated the Wish You Were Here and We Write To You About Africa projects (2021). With Paul Farber, Uduma is a co-curator of You’re Welcome (2023).

Ozi Uduma, Assistant Curator of Global Contemporary Art at UMMA wearing a pink jumpsuit surrounded by the architecture of Alumni Memorial Hall at the U-M Museum of Art. Photo by Ian John Solomon

Photo by Ian John Solomon

Monument Lab Director Paul Farber

Curator-in-Residence for U-M Arts Initiative

Monument Lab Director and Co-Founder Paul Farber is the co-curator of You’re Welcome. In addition to his role at Monument Lab, Farber is Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Public Art & Space at the University of Pennsylvania. In conjunction with the partnership at UMMA, Dr. Farber also serves as the U-M Arts Initiative’s first-ever Curator-in-Residence. In this role, he meets with and steers a learning cohort of staff and faculty, convened around conversations and interactions to build a network around the role of public art on the U-M campus and region. Farber has written and co-edited several books including A Wall of Our Own: An American History of the Berlin Wall (2020), Monument Lab: Creative Speculations on Philadelphia (2019), and the National Monument Audit (2021). He also hosts The Statue, a podcast series from WHYY and NPR. Farber earned a PhD and MA in American Culture from the University of Michigan and a BA in Urban Studies from the University of Pennsylvania.

Paul Farber, Director and Co-Founder of Monument Lab wearing glasses and a blue button up surrounded by the architecture of Alumni Memorial Hall at the U-M Museum of Art. Photo by Ian John Solomon

Photo by Ian John Solomon