Elizabeth LaPensée

Elizabeth LaPensée
Born	1984 (age 40–41)[1] Anaheim, California[2]
Nationality	American
Occupation(s)	Professor, artist, game designer, writer, and researcher
Academic background
Alma mater	Portland State University Simon Fraser University
Thesis	Survivance: An Indigenous Social Impact Game (2014)
Doctoral advisor	Ron Wakkary
Academic work
Institutions	Michigan State University

Elizabeth LaPensée (born 1984)^[1] is a game designer and games researcher. She is currently the Narrative Director at Twin Suns Corp, a Seattle-based AAA studio.^[3] She has previously worked as an associate professor in the Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures at Michigan State University.^[4] She studies and creates video games, interactive digital media, animation, visual art, and comics to express Indigenous ways of knowing.^[5]

Background

Elizabeth LaPensée was born in Anaheim, California,^[2] in 1984.^[1] Her mother is Grace Dillon, a professor at Portland State University.

Education

LaPensée received her PhD from Simon Fraser University.^[4] Her dissertation was on the benefits of playing Survivance, a social impact game that uplifts storytelling, art, and self-determination as a pathway to healing from Indigenous historical trauma.^[6][7]

Game design

LaPensée designs games around Indigenous ways of knowing. Active as a community organizer, she often collaborates with Indigenous community partners to create games. She argues that Indigenous practices and teachings can inspire innovative game mechanics.^[8] Her games provide an interactive way of engaging with and continuing on Indigenous cultures and history. Her game Honour Water (2016) is a singing-game that teaches Anishinaabe water songs.^[9] In 2014, LaPensée spoke out against a remake of Custer's Revenge, a controversial game that allows the player, as General Custer, to rape a Native American woman.^[10]

LaPensée's game Invaders was featured in the 2015 ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival in Toronto.^[11][12]

She organized the first Natives in Game Development Gathering at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in May 2015.^[13]

Indigenous futurism

LaPensée's research is often cited in connection with Indigenous Futurisms. She was an early research assistant with Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC) and research affiliate with the Initiative for Indigenous Futures (IIF).^[14] Her mother, scholar Grace Dillon, describes LaPensée's sci-fi animations as a "must-see" example of how Indigenous storytelling can transform the way Indigenous futures are imagined.^[15] Kristina Baudemann argues that LaPensée, despite being perceived as a white woman, retains an ability to draw on her ancestry to create new representations of Indigenous people.^[16]

Awards

In 2017, LaPensée received the Serious Games Community Leadership Award from the Serious Games Special Interest Group of the International Game Developers Association and she was named one of Motherboard's Humans of the Year, a series of profiles recognizing people in science and technology who are building a better future for everyone.^{[17][18][19][20]} Her game Thunderbird Strike won the prize for Best Digital Media Work at the 2017 ImagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival.^[21]

In April 2018, LaPensée was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in the fine arts category.^[22] When Rivers Were Trails was awarded Best Adaptation at IndieCade 2019.

Works

Games

• Weird West (2022)^[23]
• When Rivers Were Trails (2019)^[24]
• Dialect (2017)
• Thunderbird Strike (2017)^[25]
• Coyote Quest (2017)^[26]
• Manoominike (2017)
• Mikan (2017)
• Honour Water (2016)^[27]
• Little Earth Strong (2016)
• Singuistics: Anishinaabemowin (2016)
• Invaders (2015) (with Trevino Brings Plenty and Steven Paul Judd)^[28]
• Ninagamomin ji-nanaandawi'iwe (2015)
• The Gift of Food (2014)
• Gathering Native Foods (2014)
• Max's Adventure (2013)
• Mawisowin (2012)
• Survivance (2011)
• Techno Medicine Wheel (2008)
• Venture Arctic (2007)^[29]

References

1. "Environmental Injustice Indigenous Peoples' Alternativves" (PDF). Musée d'ethnographie de Genéve. 2021. p. 3. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
2. Sheyahshe, Michael. "IPI #4 – Elizabeth LaPensee". aNm. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
3. "TEAM". Twin Suns Corp. Retrieved October 21, 2023.
4. "Elizabeth LaPensée". Department of Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures. Michigan State University. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
5. "Video Games Encourage Indigenous Cultural Expression". Conversation. Retrieved March 15, 2019.
6. "Survivance". Survivance. Retrieved October 19, 2017.
7. LaPensee, Elizabeth (February 7, 2014). Survivance: An Indigenous Social Impact Game (PhD thesis). Simon Fraser University. p. V.
8. "The post-apocalyptic dimensional space of Native video game design". Ars Technica. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
9. Hearne, Joanna; LaPensée, Elizabeth (Spring 2017). ""We All Stand Side by Side": An Interview with Elizabeth LaPensée". Studies in American Indian Literatures. 29 (1). University of Nebraska Press: 27–37. doi:10.5250/studamerindilite.29.1.0027. S2CID 164483954. Retrieved April 30, 2018.
10. "Offensive video game Custer's Revenge gets last stand online". CBC News. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
11. "imagineNATIVE Brings Indigenous Art and Media to Prominence". CGMagazine. October 15, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
12. "imagineNATIVE Film + Media Arts Festival explores games made by and about Indigenous peoples". Financial Post. October 13, 2015. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
13. "UC Santa Cruz to host Natives in Game Dev Gathering". Games and Playable Media. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
14. "Elizabeth LaPensee | Michigan State University". comartsci.msu.edu. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
15. Dillon, Grace (2016). "Indigenous futurisms, bimaashi biidaas mose, flying and walking towards you". Extrapolation. 57 (1/2): 2. doi:10.3828/extr.2016.2.
16. Baudemann, Kristina (January 2016). "Indigenous Futurisms in North American Indigenous Art". Extrapolation. 57 (1–2): 117–150. doi:10.3828/extr.2016.8.
17. "Community Leadership Award". Michigan State University Communication Arts & Sciences. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
18. "How a Michigan State professor won an award for serious games". Big Ten Network. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
19. Dubé, Jacob; Ferreira, Becky (December 5, 2017). "This Game Developer Wants to Create Space for Indigenous Stories". Motherboard. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
20. "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Elizabeth LaPensée". Retrieved February 7, 2019.
21. "Festival 2017 Winners". imagineNATIVE Film & Media Arts Festival. Archived from the original on January 9, 2019. Retrieved October 30, 2017.
22. "2018 Guggenheim Fellowship Fellows" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on April 6, 2018. Retrieved April 25, 2018.
23. Lawardorn, Damien (July 30, 2021). "Weird West Developer WolfEye Is Putting Player Agency at the Center of Its Dark Immersive Sim". The Escapist. Retrieved October 30, 2021.
24. "When Rivers Were Trails by indianlandtenure". itch.io. Retrieved February 27, 2019.
25. "About – Thunderbird Strike". Thunderbird Strike.
26. "CoyoteQuest". game.coyotescience.com. Retrieved February 7, 2019.
27. "About". Honour Water. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
28. "Invaders, 2015". survivance.org. Retrieved March 14, 2019.
29. "Games". Elizabeth LaPensée. Retrieved February 27, 2019.