Native life is everywhere. Just look around.

A member of the Crow/Apsáalooke tribe, Wendy Red Star was raised on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana, which encompasses two million acres. And while she was immersed in Crow culture growing up, she didn’t really learn the broader history of Indigenous people in the U.S. until college. Today as a visual artist, Wendy centers this history, along with Native life and culture, in work that spans imaginative self-portraiture, vivid collage, and site-specific installation. An avid researcher, Wendy re-examines cultural artifacts and historical imagery, using them as inspiration for work that is at once inquisitive, witty, and thought-provoking. You can find her vibrant work in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, the British Museum, and others. 

In this episode, Wendy shares with Dwayne the meaning of her very first art project, in which she set up a tipi in the middle of the football field at Montana State University; what it feels like to find artifacts that belonged to your ancestors in a museum archive; and why she thinks the work of Native artists is so often labeled as “political.”

Learn more about Wendy Star

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