VAC to Host Hiawatha Insane Asylum Presentation This Weekend

The Washington Pavilion Visual Arts Center (VAC) will host a FREE presentation by the Hiawatha Indian Insane Asylum Action Committee to combine the arts and the history of South Dakota as a complement to the SD Governor's Biennial Art Exhibition in the VAC. The presentation will take place in the Washington Pavilion's Belbas Theater on August 22, 2015 from 6-9 p.m. with short intermission and will be open to the public. This presentation will be educational and experiential with story-telling combined with tangible historical elements from the Asylum.

The Hiawatha Insane Asylum was once located on the rolling hills of the current Canton Hiawatha Golf Club. For thirty years starting in 1900, the Asylum opened as the nation's only institution for American Indians. Although the initial goal of the Asylum was to be helpful to Indians on the reservations, it spiraled into poor leadership, care and diagnosis. At the close of the Hiawatha Insane Asylum 1933, a lot of information on the inmates and conditions were lost. The Hiawatha Action Committee has set out to research these facts and to present them in such a way that people understand the history and can properly memorialize the lives that were lost at the Asylum.

The speakers will include members of the Hiawatha Indian Insane Asylum Action Committee, Ann Dillinscheider, Ross Lathrop and Jerry Fogg. Guests will have the opportunity to speak with the Action Committee, take home various materials and view actual materials from the Asylum.

The Washington Pavilion is the region's home for the arts, entertainment and science. Located in a beautifully renovated historic building in downtown Sioux Falls, it is one of only a few facilities in the world to bring together under one roof the performing arts, visual arts and interactive science. The vast array of high quality programming and educational activities available through the Husby Performing Arts Center, Kirby Science Discovery Center, Visual Arts Center and the Community Learning Center ensures that people of all ages and walks of life can rely upon the Washington Pavilion to entertain, inspire, educate and enrich. There is, indeed, something for everyone here. For information about our programs, call (605) 367-7397 or, (toll free) at 1-877-Wash Pav or visit our website at www.washingtonpavilion.org.

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