Jackson Hole Public Art and The Center will host a celebration for the first LandSignals installation, Listening to Inyan, on June 12 at 5pm in the Center Courtyard. Mnicoujou artist Rachel Olivia Berg will be in attendance and will speak about the inspiration for this piece and the process of creating it.

Listening to Inyan centers the Teton Mountain Range of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) and Indigenous perspectives on ecological stewardship. Berg’s site-specific, three-dimensional exhibition comes face to face with humankind’s relationship to the changing landscape. Focusing on the Snake River as the essential life force of the locale, the sculpture represents 365 cast stones from the Snake River each with a unique species of being that live within the GYE printed using the cyanotype (sunprint) process. Berg calls upon Lakota symbols, stone, and the sacred color blue to reinforce the knowledge within Indigenous communities that all living beings are connected and that parts of nature like stone, water, sun, and moon are understood to be living. 

This event will also celebrate the opening for Berg’s sculptural and photographic cyanotype work displayed in the Center Commons and hosted by the Center. This collection portrays a story of creation from the Octeti Sakowin (The Seven Council Fires). The exhibition remembers Inyan and presents his story as a reminder to humankind that we are living members of a universal ecosystem that must be cared for to sustain life for ourselves and all the beings connected to us.

Jackson Hole Public Art is producing LandSignals to envision a future that more authentically includes Indigenous voices and traditional ecological knowledge to help us better steward the natural resources and cultural heritage of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. Four Indigenous artists, including Berg, have been commissioned to participate in this project and works will be unveiled at three additional locations during 2024, including the new Jackson Hole History Museum, Russ Garaman Park, and the Greater Yellowstone Visitor Center at the National Elk Refuge. Other LandSignals artists include Nanibah Chacon, Marlena Myles, and Ben Pease. LandSignals will include the return of the Pretty Shield Foundation’s Lighted Teepee exhibit from October 23 - 30 in the Center for the Arts Park.

Roots, 2023, by Rachel Berg is a cyaonotype sun-print) of human on muslin fabric.