She/They
Arts Division
Assistant Professor
Faculty
Porter College Academic
Porter Faculty Services
Clementine Bordeaux is an enrolled member of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate (Rosebud Sioux tribe) and was raised on the Pine Ridge Reservation (South Dakota). Clementine has spent her academic career supporting and cultivating urban and rural tribal community spaces, especially those engaged with creative practices. Clementine is a former board member for Cornerstone Theater Company (Los Angeles, CA) and is passionate about supporting tribal autonomy in the creation of Indigenous narratives. Clementine also collaborates regularly with Racing Magpie (Rapid City, SD) and aims to uplift the voices and artistic practices of other Oceti Sakowin artists.
My expertise is firmly grounded in Native American and Indigenous studies. I break down Indigenous studies into three sections addressing relationality, Indigenous feminisms, and visual representation/visual culture. Relationality serves as the guiding framework for my research, taking into account the importance of ontological and more extensive epistemological discussions.
Clementine’s research interests include the use of Indigenous relationality, Indigenous feminisms, Oceti Sakowin (Lakota/Dakota/Nakota) creative practices and visual cultures, as well as community-based participatory research. Clementine engages with historians, literature scholars, activists, and community culture bearers to analyze and engage with Indigenous knowledge systems. A rural Lakota upbringing guides Clementine's methodologies, particularly in the context of the Northern Plains (in what is now known as the United States).
My teaching areas comprise Native American/American Indian/Indigenous studies, gender studies, film and visual culture theory, and tribal creative practices, both in urban and rural contexts. I also utilize experiential learning, community-based participatory pedagogies, and service learning.
2023 - 2025 University of California President’s and Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow
2022 - 2023 ACLS/Mellon Dissertation Completion Fellowship
2021 - 2022 Social Science Research Council IDRF
2021 Wenner Gren Dissertation Research Grant
2021 Cobell Summer Graduate Research Fellowship
Current: "Ordinary Presence: The Everyday of Ikce" co-curated by Clementine Bordeaux, Molina Two Bulls, Graci Horne, m.v. bordeaux, and Layli Long Soldier. Opening at Racing Magpie, Rapid City, SD (June 2025 - May 2026)
Current: “The Language of Place” curated by Shaarbek Amankul and Heidi Brandow with Clementine Bordeaux and Tom Jones. Opening at Form & Concept, Santa Fe, NM (August 2025 - October 2025
Past: “Responsibilities and Obligations: Understanding Mitákuye Oyásʼiŋ,” at Racing Magpie, Rapid City, SD (June 2017 - May 2018)
Past: "Adrienne" in Cornerstone Theater Company's 2016 premiere of Urban Rez written by Larissa FastHorse and directed by Michael John Garces.
Kite, Clementine Bordeaux, & Laura Harjo in Conversation - Indigenous AI & Art, hosted by the Institute of American Indian Arts Library, Computer Science Dept., & Office of Institutional Research, Santa Fe, NM, March 24, 2025
“Axiological Anchors: A discussion of Indigenous studies ethics, praxis, and methodologies” panel Chair at the College Arts Association, New York, NY, Feb 12, 2025
Impressions on Nomadic Art Camp in Kyrgyzstan Panel Discussion, Museum of Contemporary Native Art (Online), with Heidi K. Brandow (Diné and Kanaka Maoli), Clementine Bordeaux (Sicangu Oglala Lakota), and Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk), and Shaarbek Armankul (Kyrgyzstan and Zhediger). Nov 8, 2024
Reflections on Nomadic Art Camp, Racing Magpie, Rapid City, SD, October 10, 2024 invited speaker.
“Indigenous In/humanities: K'é Building and Native-to-Native Relationalities” roundtable at the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association annual conference, Bodo, Norway, June 6, 2024
“An Očéti Šakówiŋ Feminist Praxis and Indigenous Feminisms” paper presentation at the Creative Arts Association Conference, Chicago, IL, Feb 15, 2025
Keynote address, Native American Heritage Month Celebration, Carthage College, Kenosha, WI, November 30, 2023
“Seeking Kin at the End of the World” paper presentation at the American Studies Association, Montreal, Canada, Nov 3, 2023
Bordeaux, Clementine, and Mary Bordeaux. “Gluhá Máni: Collecting to Hold, Not to Keep.” Forging, April 18, 2025. https://forgeproject.com/.
Bordeaux, Clementine, and Heidi K. Brandow. “Threads of Kinship: Bridging Global Indigenous Communities Through Art.” First American Art Magazine, 2025.
Bordeaux, Clementine. “Operating on a Continuum of My Ancestors: A Lakota Relationship with Fairburn Agates.” American Art 38, no. 3 (September 1, 2024): 19–22. https://doi.org/10.1086/733259.
Bordeaux, Clementine, and Miranda Belarde-Lewis. “Native Philosophies and Relationality in ATLA: It’s (Lion) Turtles All the Way Down.” In Avatar: The Last Airbender and Philosophy. Wisdom from Aang to Zuko, edited by Johan De Smedt and Helen De Cruz. The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series 24. Wiley-Blackwell, 2022.
Bordeaux, Clementine. “Unsettled Debts: 1968 and the Problem of Historical Memory| The American Indian Movement and the Politics of Nostalgia: Indigenous Representation From Wounded Knee to Standing Rock.” International Journal of Communication 16 (2022): 23.
