Mack Lecture: Sterlin Harjo & Q&A with Peggy Flanagan

Mack Lectures provide a platform for change-makers at the forefront of their fields to share new ideas and alternate ways of working.
This spring’s event features Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Muscogee), director and co-creator (with Taika Waititi) of the groundbreaking TV series Reservation Dogs. For his lecture, Harjo will speak on how he instigated radical change in the film and TV industry by foregrounding the lives of Indigenous people at all stages of film production. Following Harjo’s presentation will be a short dialogue, moderated by Lieutenant Governor of Minnesota Peggy Flanagan (Ojibwe).
When Reservation Dogs premiered in August 2021, Harjo already had an award-winning roster of short and feature-length film projects under his belt. Filmed on the Muscogee Nation in Oklahoma, the FX series was a game-changer-not only for its representation of Indigenous stories and characters on-screen but also for the revolutionary world-building behind the scenes, written and directed by an all-Native team. From film production to his work with the Native comedy troupe the 1491s, Harjo has centered Indigenous stories and creators throughout his career.
Bios
Sterlin Harjo (Seminole/Muscogee) is an award-winning filmmaker from Holdenville, Oklahoma. Now based in Tulsa, Harjo is the co-creator and showrunner of Reservation Dogs (FX Productions), a comedy-drama series following four Indigenous teenage friends living in a small town in Oklahoma. After its first season, the series won a 2022 Peabody award, 2022 Television Academy Honors award, 2022 Independent Spirit Award for Best Comedy Series, and has continued to gain acclaim through the end of the series in 2023. Over his career, Harjo has created and directed five feature films: three narrative dramas and two documentaries. Each of his films are set in Oklahoma and address contemporary Indigenous experiences. His first feature, Four Sheets to the Wind, premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2007 and was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize. His most recent documentary feature Love and Fury chronicles the lives and work of more than a dozen contemporary Native American artists over the course of a year. The film was acquired by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY and released on Netflix in December 2021. A founding member of the Native sketch comedy troupe the 1491s, Harjo co-wrote the group’s play Between Two Knees, an intergenerational comedic love story/musical set against the backdrop of true events in Native American history. The play was commissioned in 2018/2019 by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and New Native Theater, based in the Twin Cities. In 2022, it completed a run at Yale Repertory Theater.
Peggy Flanagan (Ojibwe) is Minnesota’s 50th Lieutenant Governor, a member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe, and currently the country’s highest ranking Native woman elected to executive office. At the center of all her work is making progress for children, working families, communities of color and Indigenous communities, and Minnesotans who have historically been underserved and underrepresented. As Lieutenant Governor, Flanagan has led the Governor’s Office to help secure key legislative wins, including establishing the nation’s first Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office, increasing the Minnesota Family Investment Program payments, securing historic investments in affordable housing and child care, and investing in equity in bonding to support community projects led by and for people of color. She decided to run for legislature while working as the executive director for Children’s Defense Fund Minnesota. Flanagan was elected to the Minnesota House of Representatives (2015-2019). She also served on the Minneapolis Board of Education, and was a member of Wellstone Action. Flanagan is a St. Louis Park native and proud graduate of St. Louis Park Public Schools. She earned her bachelor’s degree in American Indian studies and child psychology in 2002 from the University of Minnesota.