Past Exhibitions

Tanya Lukin Linklater: Inner blades of grass (soft) inner blades of grass (cured) inner blades of grass (bruised by the weather)

Artist Residency

Info & Tickets

A tall, semicircular sculpture of fifteen curved wooden ribs on a metal base sits near a video projection depicting two figures reclining on a rock.

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Jun 01, 2024–Aug 21, 2024

Galleries

Free for all audiences

ACCESSIBILITY
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals, including individuals with disabilities, to engage fully. If you have questions about accessibility or require an accommodation such as CART captioning or ASL interpretation to participate in this event, please email accessibility@wexarts.org or call (614) 688-3890. Requests made by two weeks in advance will generally allow us to provide seamless access, but the Wexner Center for the Arts will make every effort to meet requests made after this date.

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Experience visual and performing art by Sugpiaq artist, writer, and Wexner Center Artist Residency Award recipient Tanya Lukin Linklater in her first US survey exhibition.

Her largest presentation to date, the exhibition explores Lukin Linklater’s multidisciplinary practice over the past decade and features a Wex-commissioned project informed by her visit to Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks in Newark, Ohio, the nation’s newest United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site. You’ll encounter other new works that cite Indigenous art lineages, embrace ancestral belongings, and consider how weather organizes communities as well as our environment.

Lukin Linklater’s perception of time and place comes across in her sculpture, installation, rehearsals, video, works on paper, and writing. She explains that her practice is inspired by her upbringing in the Kodiak archipelago of Alaska. “I look to my Alutiiq/Sugpiaq knowledges in relation to our homelands, waterways, atmospheres and our minds.”

The exhibition’s title is informed by an interview with the late Sugpiaq cultural worker Eunice von Scheele Neseth and a poem by Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Solider. Describing grass in different states—soft, cured, and bruised by the weather—references the procedures that women of Kodiak Island follow when harvesting and processing plant material used to weave baskets. The imagery evoked by the words also asks viewers to consider observation and touch in the acts of restoration and repair.

During the exhibition’s opening and closing moments, visitors can experience a multiday series of improvisational open rehearsals with dance artists in relation to Structure of Sustenance Three in the galleries.

In August, Inner blades of grass will also culminate with a gathering of Indigenous artists, musicians, poets, and performers.

Open Rehearsals: Scrape soak steam pour crack sew bend brace.

Open rehearsals will take place 2–5 PM in the galleries with dance artists in relation to Structure of Sustenance Three on the following days:

Jun 1, 2, 4, and 5
Aug 13–17

Artists:

Dance artists: Sam Aros-Mitchell, Ivanie Aubin-Malo, Talia Dixon, Ceinwen Gobert, and lisa nevada
Choreographer: Tanya Lukin Linklater
Outside eye/facilitator: Rosy Simas
Costume, styling, and studio assistant: Mina Linklater

Learn more about the artists.