Photo credit: Cannupa Hanska Luger

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a New Mexico based multidisciplinary artist creating monumental installations, sculpture and performance to communicate urgent stories of 21st Century Indigeneity. Incorporating ceramics, steel, fiber, video and repurposed materials, Luger activates speculative fiction, engages in land-based actions of repair and practices empathetic response through social collaboration. Born on the Standing Rock Reservation in North Dakota, Luger is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold and is Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara and Lakota. Luger combines critical cultural analysis with dedication and respect for the diverse materials, environments, and communities he engages. His bold visual storytelling presents new ways of seeing our collective humanity while foregrounding an Indigenous worldview.

Luger is the recipient of a 2024 Herb Alpert Award in the Arts and is a 2024 Monument Lab Fellow. He is a 2023 SOROS Arts Fellow, a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow, a recipient of a 2021 United States Artists Fellowship Award for Craft and was named a 2021 GRIST Change Maker. Luger is a 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.