Online Unveiling Ceremony: Friday, October 9 | 3 pm PST
Alumnus and former faculty member Rigo 23 brings his large-scale statue of Leonard Peltier to SFAI's rooftop terrace this fall to gaze across the bay to Alcatraz, a pivotal place for the American Indian Movement and Indians of All Tribes. The 12-foot-high likeness of Peltier, a Native activist incarcerated since 1977, is based on a small hand painted self portrait that Peltier created in prison.
The installation of the work at SFAI places the statue in dialogue with the Indigenous Peoples Day Sunrise Ceremonies that have taken place on Alcatraz annually October 12 and November 26 since 1975 to honor the Indigenous Peoples of America, promote their rights, and to commemorate the Native activists who occupied the island in protest in 1969.