Kite
Drawing from Nonconscious Knowing (Map of A Dream), 2026
Dreams, Colored Pencil, Glass Beads, Deer Hide, Thread
approx 36 x 24 in
Courtesy of the artist
Selected by Lauren Cornell
Kite aka Suzanne Kite (b. 1990, Sylmar, CA; lives in Catskill, NY) is an Oglála Lakȟóta artist, composer, and scholar. Her artworks and performances have recently been featured at the 2024 Whitney Biennial; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Center for Art, Research and Alliances (CARA), New York; and the 2024 Shanghai Biennial; among other venues. Her awards and honors include a Ruth Award, a 2023 United States Artist Fellowship, a Creative Time open call commission (with Alisha Wormsley), and a Creative Capital grant. She is currently Director of Wihanble S’a Lab, Distinguished Artist in Residence, and Assistant Professor of American and Indigenous Studies at Bard College. Kite holds degrees from California Institute of the Arts, Bard College, and received her PhD from Concordia University.
Known for her sound and video performance with her Machine Learning hair-braid interface, Kite’s groundbreaking scholarship and practice investigate contemporary Lakota ontologies through research-creation, computational media, and performance, often working in collaboration with family and community members. Kite develops body interfaces for machine learning driven performance, sculptures generated by dreams, and experimental sound and video work. Working with machine learning techniques since 2017 and developing body interfaces for performance since 2013, Kite is a first American Indian artist to utilize Machine Learning in art practice.
Kite is an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe.