Teejop Community Art Project educates, spreads awareness of history

This August, Madison will be celebrating a project 10 years in the making. The Teejop Community History Public Art Project is focused on educating the public on the Teejop (pronounced “day-JOPE”) community, with seven artists’ installations at five sites. 

“One of its primary goals is for this to be educational for people, so that people learn more about the land that they’re living in and the water,” said Madison arts and culture administrator Karin Wolf. 

The Teejop Community History Public Art Project was created by a Ho-Chunk community group working with the Madison Arts Commission. The seven artists included are Gene Delcourt, Lightning the Earth New Rider, Chloris Lowe, Dakota Mace, Melanie Tallmadge Sainz, Christopher Sweet and June Whitehorse.

New Indigenous artwork

June Whitehorse created “Greeting the Land,” a large, circular map of Lake Monona on an oak wood tabletop with raised effigy mounds carved out of it. 

Gene Delcourt created the “Dugout” installation at Merrill Spring as a sculpture of a Ho-Chunk man crafting a dugout canoe along the shore of Lake Mendota.

Dakota Mace created the ‘Tsé’ Bahane’ installation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Arboretum that is a series of 20 copper plates. These plates show narratives about stars, creation and personal stories with the help of idiophones — musical instruments that create sound using the vibration of the instrument itself.