The Native Guide Project: STL

Anna Tsouhlarakis (Navajo/Creek) works in sculpture, installation, video, and performance. For Counterpublic 2023, The Native Guide Project: STL Tsouhlarakis created a multi-media, city-wide work consisting of a billboard at Sugarloaf Mound and public digital displays throughout St. Louis. Using text as a vehicle to question place, land, identity, and narrative, The Native Guide Project: STL occupied and reconditioned the mindset of viewers.

Following the first The Native Guide Project (2019-present) and The Native Guide Project: Columbus (2023), Tsouhlarakis focused on the Indigenous presence of the area which precedes the city of St. Louis illustrated in the monumental architectural constructions we refer to as “mounds” of the tribes residing alongside the currently named Mississippi River. Though Native people were forcibly removed from this area, The Native Guide Project: STL demonstrated their ancestors, their stories, and their knowledge remain a part of this land forever.