Reconciliation Project

Charred tipi skeletal frames and historic markers placed across the campus of Augustana University in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for the Nobel Peace Prize Forum in 1992. The temporary installation stood silent and ghost-like, with burnt lodgepole pines and trampled snow echoing memories of massacre and deceit alongside voices of reconciliation and remembrance recorded in English and Lakota on the historical markers scattered throughout the site.

This was the original installation. Later that same year, a second and larger version was realized in Denver’s Civic Center Park as the Quincentenary Project, placed along the Columbus Day Parade route, where it contributed to the cancellation of the parade.

The Reconciliation Project was reviewed by Lucy Lippard in Lure of the Local (New Press, 1998).