Erik Redix

Erik Redix’s work investigates the Deluge at Bakweyawaa as an instance of American colonialism in the 20th century. In 1923, the Winter Dam was completed to generate hydroelectricity and created the Chippewa Flowage, a 23,000-acre body of water that devastated the Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwe Reservation in northwest Wisconsin. The creation of the Flowage destroyed cemeteries, roads, wild rice beds, and the community of Bakweyawaa. Throughout the 1910’s the tribe repeatedly voted against the construction of the dam. The creation of the Flowage directly resulted in decades of poverty for the Ojibwe.