Buffalograss, Eastern Cottontail
- ink on tyvek
- Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez
-
Not For Sale
Buffalograss
Bouteloua Dactyloides (Nuttall)
Qáde banóⁿnoⁿ (Umónhon)
One of the dominant Native grasses of the Great Plains shortgrass prairies, it was a main menu item—as its name suggests—of the American Bison, when these huge bovines “roamed” the Plains in incredible numbers. A supposed “old Indian proverb” of the Lakota runs as follows: “A people without history is like the wind on the buffalo grass.” Traditional Lakota culture depended so much on the bison herds that, when the latter were decimated during U.S. Western expansion, that history was very much threatened. Hopefully, recent Lakota cultural regeneration—and the return of free-range bison—have put the dire warning of the “proverb” to rest.
Eastern Cottontail
Sylvilagus floridanus (Allen)
Maští.sapela (Lak.óta)
Rabbit is a Trickster figure among many Native tribes of the southeastern U.S. For Great Plains tribes, Coyote is the dominant trickster figure (along with—for the Lakota—Iktomi, the spider). Blessed with both sheer animal "stupidity" and uncanny animal cunning, the Trickster is an archetype of both creative destruction and cultural renewal. In Lakota stories, for instance, he is forever losing his tail, getting chopped up into bits, and generally making a mess of the cosmic order. But he always comes back to life, and the world is better off for his shenanigans. The function of the Trickster has long been debated. In one sense, the Trickster is “raw” instinctual animal, intermittently erupting into “civilized” human consciousness as a numinous force—a corrective against humankind’s reliance on order and reason, and a reminder at last that we are animals, that evolution needs entropy and chaos, and that to remain in any blithe condition of stasis is a psychological and cultural death.
For this collection, the artist would like to acknowledge the following people:
Thomas Gannon, Associate Professor, English and Ethnnic Studies, UNL for writing the accompanying texts. Sofía F. Echeverry for her work as studio assistant.
Nancy Friedemann-Sánchez is a Colombo-American, mid-career artist with an interdisciplinary practice. She grew up in Colombia as the child of a Colombian and a United States citizen and migrated to the US as an adult. Her art is about the curious and intense experience of having physically migrated, yet still having a piece of herself rooted in Colombia. She is creating an intersectional feminist visual novel that is a multifaceted project comprised of paintings, sculptures, objects, and mixed media that together—and in different voices—weave a synchronicity of dialogues, passages, and punctuations about hybridity and cultural ownership.
Eastern Cottontail
Sylvilagus floridanus (Allen)
Maštíŋsapela (Lakȟóta)
Rabbit is a Trickster figure among many Native tribes of the southeastern U.S. For Great Plains tribes, Coyote is the dominant trickster figure (along with—for the Lakota—Iktomi, the spider). Blessed with both sheer animal "stupidity" and uncanny animal cunning, the Trickster is an archetype of both creative destruction and cultural renewal. In Lakota stories, for instance, he is forever losing his tail, getting chopped up into bits, and generally making a mess of the cosmic order. But he always comes back to life, and the world is better off for his shenanigans. The function of the Trickster has long been debated. In one sense, the Trickster is “raw” instinctual animal, intermittently erupting into “civilized” human consciousness as a numinous force—a corrective against humankind’s reliance on order and reason, and a reminder at last that we are animals, that evolution needs entropy and chaos, and that to remain in any blithe condition of stasis is a psychological and cultural death.
- Created: June 2021
- Inventory Number: 20V.756.2021
- Current Location: University of Nebraska Lincoln - Enterprise Technology at Nebraska Hall - 1400 R St Lincoln, NE 68588 (google map)
- Collections: 1. New Acquisitions, University of Nebraska Lincoln