The Great Plains Art Museum will host artist Elizabeth Burden as the 2026 Elizabeth Rubendall Artist in Residence Sept. 1-12. During her residency, Burden will create an artwork that will become part of the museum’s permanent collection.
Visitors are encouraged to see the artist in action in the lower-level Elizabeth Rubendall Artist-in-Residence Studio and Education Lab during the museum’s public hours.
“Elsewhere/The Prairie Was Ours,” Burden’s collaborative exhibition, will be on view at the museum from Aug. 25 through Dec. 19. The exhibition brings together the work of three artists — Burden, Willa Ahlschwede and Marci Sue Black — descendants of formerly enslaved Black American, immigrant European American and Indigenous communities shaped by prairie life. Their works use image, sound, artifact and gesture to trace and unsettle memory.
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Burden is a multidisciplinary artist who combines studio work and social engagement to explore memory, history, inheritance and the relationship between past, present and future. Working across painting, video, sound, coding, mapping and other media, she creates spaces for critical thinking, feeling and reflecting. Born and raised in Lincoln, Burden is the great-granddaughter of Henry and Mary Burden, among Nebraska’s first Black homesteaders. She lives and works in Tucson, Arizona.
Ahlschwede is an educator and curator based in Tucson. Raised in Omaha, she is a fifth-generation Nebraskan whose family homesteaded in Saline County in 1872. As the curator of academic and community engagement at the University of Arizona Museum of Art, she develops exhibitions, learning experiences and relationships. Her background includes environmental education, arts-based youth and community programs, organic farming, dance, improvisation, collage, drawing and collaborative mural projects.
Black is a member of the Jiwere-Nutachi, or Otoe-Missouria Tribe of Oklahoma, and an Ioway descendant. Raised in her tribal community, Black brings that perspective to her multidisciplinary art and continues traditional and contemporary Native arts, including regalia making, beadwork, jewelry, leather handbags, belts and Indigenous fashion design. As an associate producer with Deer Woman Productions, she expanded into filmmaking through the Cherokee Film Institute and mentorship from Indigenous colleagues. Her work reflects her roles as an Otoe-Missouria mother, daughter, sister, auntie and creative.
Burden will give an artist talk about her work from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Sept. 10 at Sheldon Museum of Art. Register for the free event.
Since its inception in 2006, the Elizabeth Rubendall Foundation has supported the Artist-in-Residence Program, which gives museum visitors and school groups an opportunity to engage with a working artist.
The Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St., is open to the public 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday (closed home football Saturdays). Admission is free. Learn more.
