2025 | ARTIST LECTURE Spirit Citizen: Provocative Native American Public Art and Studio Practice, by Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds

Join artist Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds (Cheyenne and Arapaho) for an artist lecture about art and activism from 3:00-4:00 pm in the CUB Auditorium.

Heap of Birds’ decades-long contributions to contemporary art and Native cultural discourse often juxtapose past atrocities against Indigenous communities with contemporary issues like gun violence and environmental devastation. Two of the artist’s works are on view at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art WSU as part of the exhibition Color Outside the Lines from the Collections of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, including the monoprint installation Not Your Coyote Stories (2015) and a painting from the Neuf Series (1996).

Afterwards, celebrate the fall exhibitions in a reception at the museum from 4:00-6:00 pm.

About |  The artworks of Hock E Aye Vi Edgar Heap of Birds include multi-disciplinary forms of public art messages, large scale drawings, Neuf Series acrylic paintings, prints, works in glass and monumental porcelain enamel on steel outdoor sculpture. Heap of Birds’ artistic creations and efforts as an advocate for Indigenous communities worldwide are focused first upon social justice and then the personal freedom to live within the tribal circle as an expressive individual.

The artist studied at the University of Kansas, Lawrence (BFA, 1976), has undertaken graduate studies at the Royal College of Art, London (1977) and attended the Tyler School of Art, Philadelphia (MFA, 1979).  He was named USA Ford Fellow in 2012 and Distinguished Alumni, University of Kansas, in 2014.  Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts and Letters degrees have been awarded by the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston (2008), Emily Carr University of Art and Design, Vancouver, Canada (2017), and California Institute of the Arts, Valencia, (2018).  In 2020, Heap of Birds was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as a member of the Humanities & Arts class, with a specialty in Visual Arts.