UNIVERSITY PARK — HUB-Robeson Galleries is excited to announce The Bison Bead Project – a series of call-to-action workshops by New Mexico-based, contemporary Indigenous artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. These workshops are presented in conjunction with Luger’s solo exhibition, Reunion on view in HUB Gallery through March 4, 2025.

A community-wide, drop-in workshop will be held in the HUB-Robeson Center on Friday, Feb. 21 from 3-6 p.m. in the Noontime Lounge. Registration is encouraged by visiting https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=RY30fNs9iUOpwcEVUm61LuCo6n_cg2hBmyxmpAIfZ4NUMlE3R1g5NUZBNkVGNUlBUVdGTTJGTzkyNS4u

When settlers came to the Great Plains of North America, they decimated the buffalo in order to clear land for occupation, subjugating the Plains Tribes through a war of attrition. By 1895, buffalo herds declined from tens of millions to a mere 1,500. This loss of species deeply impacted the Indigenous human population along with the denigration of their land. Today, there are approximately 31,000 American or Plains Bison managed as wildlife, with over 500,000 bison of various breeds in restoration process through tribal care and ranching efforts throughout North America.

The Bison Bead Project is a nationwide effort that aims to bring this story of survival and regeneration to light by working in community to generate 31,000 one-inch clay beads to represent each wild bison. Communities and individuals across Penn State are invited to participate in a community-wide workshop on Friday, Feb. 21, from 3-6 p.m. in the Noontime Lounge located on the first floor of the HUB-Robeson Center.

The resulting clay objects will come together to form a new monumental ceramic sculptural installation in honor of the Buffalo Nation. This project is the third in Luger’s Counting Coup series, which utilize social collaboration to re-humanize large and abstract data through the process of creating handmade clay objects.

The Bison Bead Project brings attention to the interconnectedness of our health and wellbeing, while honoring and amplifying communities dedicated to repopulating the American Bison. HUB-Robeson Galleries welcomes you to participate in creating with empathy and acknowledge the importance of more-than-human kinships for our shared survival.

This program is organized by HUB-Robeson Galleries and presented in partnership with The Indigenous Peoples’ Student Association (IPSA) of Penn State University.

About the Artist

Cannupa Hanska Luger (b. 1979, Standing Rock Reservation, North Dakota) is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and is Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Lakota — an identity that deeply informs his works in sculpture, installation, performance and video. Luger’s work is currently on view as a part of the 2024 Whitney Biennial; he was a 2023 Soros Award Fellow, 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, 2020 Creative Capital Fellow, a 2020 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow and the recipient of the Museum of Arts and Design’s 2018 inaugural Burke Prize, among others.