Bittersweet Winds exhibit returns to UW-Green Bay campus

GREEN BAY — The Intertribal Student Council once again brings the education-focused collection “Bittersweet Winds” to the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. The nationally touring exhibit challenges the history of ‘Indian’ representations in mass media and popular culture.

The Bittersweet Winds exhibit will be on display from 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., Monday through Wednesday, November 16-18, in Alumni Rooms A and B on the main level of the University Union, on campus. Admission is free and open to the public.

Scheduled at various times during the exhibit’s stay at UW-Green Bay are opportunities for guided tours, video presentations, a faculty panel, and student and teacher discussion sessions. Attendees are also able to take in the exhibit on their own to see the historical and present-day representation of Native American populations.

Educator and activist Richie Plass, has been a prominent spokesperson over the last decade as Wisconsin policymakers and others have taken up the issue of American Indian cultural history and the use of race-based mascots. Creator and curator of the traveling exhibit, Plass (Menominee/Stockbridge-Munsee) says the project started as his way to inform the public about mascots and logos which depict Native Americans in erroneous ways.

The Bittersweet Winds exhibit includes both historic and present-day examples of outright stereotyping displayed alongside more accurate portrayals of Native American people and culture.

For more information, contact Crystal Lepscier, an adviser in UW-Green Bay’s American Intercultural Center.

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