Display/ced Natives:
The Ad Astra Figure Representing Kansas
What do you think of when you imagine the Topeka skyline? Can you easily call to mind the figure that commands the sky? That figure is a 22 foot-tall sculpture of a Native American holding a bow and shooting an arrow into the sky. In 2002, the Ad Astra (“to the stars”) figure finally made its debut on top of the Topeka capitol — over 100 years after the state government first commissioned a statue. Originally, however, the symbolic figure intended to crown the capitol was Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture. Public opinion shifted before the idea was executed, though, and it was not until the late 1980s that local artist Richard Bergen from Salina, Kansas started work on the Ad Astra figure that currently stands atop our capitol.
This project attempts to look beyond the obvious yet unobtrusive figure to examine why and how Kansans decided that a (token) indigenous figure wielding a bow and arrow represented them best. How conscious were people about their motives and biases? What does it mean that we know so little about this figure as everyday Kansans? What follows is an attempt to better understand the cultural, artistic, and local processes of public memory, of whom we decide to remember and whom, or what, we choose to forget.
This project attempts to look beyond the obvious yet unobtrusive figure to examine why and how Kansans decided that a (token) indigenous figure wielding a bow and arrow represented them best. How conscious were people about their motives and biases? What does it mean that we know so little about this figure as everyday Kansans? What follows is an attempt to better understand the cultural, artistic, and local processes of public memory, of whom we decide to remember and whom, or what, we choose to forget.
Click the images below to read more about Ad Astra.