(UN)DISTURBED USE AND OCCUPATION

About the Exhibition

(Un)Disturbed Use and Occupation is a project that draws from the language used in Article II of the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty between the United States and bands of the Lakota in the wake of the Powder River War, primarily the clause which states that the lands described shall be “set aside for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians herein named.” That undisturbed use lasted for roughly six years before the US Army entered the Black Hills searching for gold, and officially ended with the 1877 Sell or Starve Bill in which the land was reopened for homesteaders and gold prospectors, all people who came and put their hopes and dreams for a better life into the earth which often turned to dust. Every abandoned farm, home, or life on the prairie in the pursuit of Westward Expansion came at the expense of the Indigenous peoples who had to be displaced, and were often built on lies started by those with something to gain from the failures of others. The photos in this series focus on but sometimes extend beyond Treaty territory and encompass Oceti Sakowin Ancestral Territory.

For more information on this exhibition, please visit the Memorial Union Gallery on the second floor of NDSU’s Memorial Union or email ndsu.mugallery@ndsu.edu. The Gallery is open 9am-5pm, Monday through Friday or by appointment.

The reception will also be live-streamed.

This project is supported in part by a grant from the North Dakota Council on the Arts, which receives funding from the state legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.