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    Lydia Cheshewalla

    An ephemeral art installation

    Sorting through materials gathered from the former site of the Jane Addams Homes

    • Special Exhibits Gallery, 2nd Floor

    • Free
    • Press Release

    Related event
    History Lessons: Osage Nation
    Sunday, September 27, 3–5 pm
    Join artist Lydia Cheshewalla, poet Elise Paschen, and members of the Osage Nation for an exhibition opening reception and conversation.

    Created from natural and found materials—barnyard grass, black chokeberry, used sparklers, pieces of tile—this ephemeral mural explores the many layered histories embedded in the site of the former Jane Addams Homes.

    Lydia Cheshewalla, an Osage artist from Oklahoma, collaborated with public housing residents and other community members to collect the material from the lands surrounding the National Public Housing Museum. All natural materials collected for the installation will be returned to the place from which they were gathered. This act of return, carried out by Cheshewalla, acknowledges the cyclical nature of all things, and situates her land art practice within Indigenous traditions of land stewardship.

    Throughout this cycle, the work also reflects the National Public Housing Museum’s ongoing engagement with Indigenous communities and public housing residents.

    Portrait of Lydia Cheshewalla

    About the artist

    Lyda Cheshewalla is an Osage ephemeral artist from Oklahoma, living and working in motion throughout the Great Plains ecoregion. Through the creation of site-specific land art and ephemeral installations grounded in Indigenous land stewardship practices and kinship pedagogies, Lydia engages in multivocal conversations about place and relationship. Her work has been shown at Generator Space, the Union for Contemporary Art (Omaha, NE), Comfort Station, Harold Washington Library, the Center for Native Futures, Elmhurst Art Museum, and Brushwood Center (Chicago, IL) among others. She is currently filling the bucket with water to see if it leaks and is often found standing in fields.

    Gathering event documentation

    People walking through a field, with the museum in the background
    Sorting through materials
    Three people walking through an open field with the Chicago skyline in the background
    A brick with signatures and the number 1433
    Chatting on the sidewalk under a tree
    People stand and crouch around a table having a conversation

    Support

    This installation was made possible by generous support from Laurel Appell Lipkin, Madeleine Grynstzejn and Tom Shapiro, Mirja Spooner Haffner, Inspire Nous 3 LLC, and the Poetry Foundation.

    Exhibition Resources

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