10/02/2026
Wildfruit is thrilled to host Lan𐓈𐒰͘𐓈𐒰 Docupoetics: Q***ring Cahokia, Fri Oct 9th, 6:30-8:30 PM | Co-presented by Counterpublic and Tulsa Artist Fellowship
This pop-up exhibition will feature artwork by artists Alex DeRoin (Alex DeRoin) (Osage/Otoe/Pawnee/Blackfeet/Ioway) and Veronica Pipestem (Veronica Pipestem) (Otoe-Missouria/Osage/Potawatomi), drawn from their ongoing projects engaging “landcestry”—the ways contemporary Native people’s connections to their ancestral biomes persist across time and distance—and “Lan𐓈𐒰͘𐓈𐒰”—which combines Landback and Dadaist principles to challenge colonialism, capitalism, and oppression. The evening will feature a reading by DeRoin and an optional workshop for audience members to spontaneously create Lan𐓈𐒰͘𐓈𐒰 texts.
From the artist: Q***ring Cahokia is about documenting important shifts through the medium of Dadaist Poetics, in order to challenge the Western, heteropatriarchal, and male-dominated assumptions that have been used to interpret the ancient Mississippian city of Cahokia. Applying Q***r Ecologies to the botany of the Mississippian World turns these assumptions on their head, because indigenous epistemologies look directly to the natural world to decipher the “Natural Order” of life. The surrounding environment of Cahokia is a living text that reorients the conversation to accept the fact that Nature is inherently queer.
Lan𐓈𐒰͘𐓈𐒰 Docupoetics: Q***ring Cahokia is part of Four Days in the Illinois Country; or “L’Esprit de L’Escalier,” an event series exploring land-based approaches to art and artistic approaches to territory presented by Counterpublic (Counterpublic) and Tulsa Artist Fellowship (Tulsa Artist Fellowship) at locations around the St. Louis region, from October 8-11. For information about other public programs in the series, please visit counterpublic.org/event/four-days-in-the-illinois-country
