West Bend, WI – Experience ukwé·tase (newcomer/stranger) by Wisconsin-born designer Chris T. Cornelius in the MOWA’s contemporary gallery.
At once installation, sculpture, and architectural form, this building-like structure with a title in the Oneida language was designed for the 2023 Chicago Architectural Biennial. An accompanying land acknowledgment statement reminds visitors that the building stands on what was once indigenous land.
The artist, a current resident of New Mexico and citizen of the Oneida Nation of Wisconsin, acknowledges that he too is a visitor: ukwé·tase underscores the notion that we are all strangers living somewhere on land with complex histories regarding ownership. In the design of the building, Cornelius deploys methodologies rooted in indigenous knowledge where fact, or the familiar, is coupled with myth, or the strange.
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Curated by Thomas Szolwinski, MOWA’s Associate Curator of Architecture and Design, ukwé·tase is on view now through early January. Plan your visit today at wisconsinart.org.
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