Sadie Red Wing on Indigenous design
From Design Emergency by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
April 2, 2025 · 36 min · Season 5 · Episode 4
About this episode
Sadie Red Wing discusses the importance of Indigenous design and knowledge systems in addressing contemporary design emergencies.
One of the deepest, most often overlooked emergencies in the design world is the erasure of Indigenous knowledge systems—and the continued exclusion of Indigenous voices from the platforms where futures are imagined. Why is it an emergency? Because plurality, intended as the active celebration of diversity, is not just a matter of common sense and respect, but also a matter of survival. Native cultures that have developed deep wisdom about the environment over centuries can offer powerful suggestions on how to deal with the climate crisis that global ignorance has precipitated. In this episode of Design Emergency, we speak with Sadie Red Wing, a Dakota Lakota graphic designer, researcher, and educator and a citizen of the Spirit Lake Nation from the Great Plains in the United States. Her work bridges graphic design, advocacy––especially related to visual sovereignty––information systems, and cultural preservation. She reminds us that typography, layout, and even color theory are not neutral, but carry deep histories—and that these visual systems can either perpetuate colonization or become tools of liberation. You can find images related to Sadie’s work on our Instagram grid…
People in this episode
Hosts: Alice Rawsthorn, Paola Antonelli
Guest: Sadie Red Wing
Topics covered
- Indigenous design
- graphic design
- cultural preservation
- visual sovereignty
- climate crisis
- diversity
- colonization
Keywords
- Indigenous design
- graphic design
- visual sovereignty
- cultural preservation
- climate crisis
- diversity
- colonization
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Spirit Lake Nation
Places: Great Plains
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