Oglala Lakota Artspace

The creation of the Oglala Lakota Arts Center on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota is a partnership between Artspace, First Peoples Fund, and Lakota Funds. Our shared goal was to create a centrally located fixed structure where Native artists have access to studio space, computers for digital work and electronic marketplace access, classroom and gallery space, and a hub to establish connections with other arts and cultural activities across the geographically vast Pine Ridge Reservation (which is roughly the size of Connecticut). It complements an existing mobile arts lab, Rolling Rez Arts, that further meets the needs of Pine Ridge artists (as identified in a 2013 study, Establishing a Creative Economy: Art as an Economic Engine in Native Communities). The Oglala Lakota Arts Center establishes connections with other arts and cultural activities and institutions on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and in Western South Dakota.