Honour the Treaties, 2018

The poster with the slogan “Honor the Treaties” denounces the centuries-long violations of constitutional treaties with Native Americans / First Nations by the United States government. Moreover, the poster refers to the poverty, violence and oppression faced by the Oglala Lakota on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In fact, many Lakota call it “Prisoner of War Camp #334”. Wounded Knee is located in the Pine Ridge Reservation of the Oglala Lakota in South Dakota, where the Wounded Knee Massacre took place in 1890.

We the Resilient, 2017
Original photography, Ayşe Gürsöz

The protests against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) were among the largest environmental movements of the 2000s in the USA. They led, among other things, to the largest gathering of Native Americans / First Nations members in history. The Dakota Access Pipeline was a $3.8 billion project to build an underground oil pipeline stretching 1,172 miles across the United States and crossing under the Standing Rock Reservation. The pipeline was proposed in 2014 and immediately met with opposition from resident groups and environmentalists, threatening as it did culturally, spiritually and ecologically significant areas and waterways. After multiple protests, on 6 July 2020, a federal judge ruled to shut down the Dakota Access Pipeline and empty it of all oil pending an environmental review. Nonetheless, the pipeline continues to operate today without a legal permit.

The poster shows Helen Red Feather, a veteran of the 1973 occupation of Wounded Knee, protesting the pipeline. She writes about herself on Facebook: “I’m a Lakota. I’m a freedom fighter. That’s me. I’ve got history. I come from a warrior family that protect the people…I’m a warrior. I will fight for my grandkids till I leave this world.”

Protect Sacred Water, 2015

The poster was created in 2015 through a collaboration between the Lakota grassroots organisation Owe Aku and the artist Ernesto Yerena. Directed against irresponsible exploitation of the most basic natural resource, it seeks to convey the crucial meaning of water for the survival of the Lakota. In the dry environment of the Great Plains, water is attributed an almost spiritual function. The Lakota (or Blackfeet) living in the Great Plains of North America developed their own methods of coping with the limited water supply over thousands of years.