The intention of my photo essay was to connect the different (Indigenous/Native/Aboriginal) peoples around the world who have been and are still effected by colonization. In using the artwork created by these different people and communities, I was attempting to center their individual lives and experiences. In the first photo, I was trying to invoke a personal reaction to the amount that European(cis white heteropatriarchal) colonization has effected nearly all corners of the world; as the article said, all but five countries. This photo was meant to quiet the reader/viewer and prepare them to think about what the rest of the photos would be. The second, third and fourth photos, which I used in the center of the the essay, perhaps as the portraits or the scene photos, were all chosen for specific reasons. The second photo is a piece of Modern Ledger Art, which is artwork that has been created by women Native to North America, usually on United States political/governmental documents. This particular piece of artwork was created by an artist, Dolores Purdy (Corcoran), who is alive and well, and selling her artwork to the public. This photo was meant to represent the resilience of culture through artwork, and the decolonial essence of said artwork. The third photo is a screenshot of a blog post about different decolonial artists and curators. The curator featured in my photo, Matariki Williams, aims not to decolonize, necessarily, but to indigenize. This curator is a member of the Maori of New Zealand and she ‘indigenizes’ the space of the museum/organization that she works for by incorporating artwork of Maori peoples from different eras. The act of bringing artwork created by Aboriginal/Maori people into these ‘professional’, perhaps even ‘academic’ spaces, ensures that those people are representing themselves through their own experiences. The third photo is also a screenshot, but from a video found on the blog, unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com, which advertised for an event that was held in August 2014. This event was called, “Decolonizing street art: Anticolonial Street Artists Convergence.” The artwork created by these Street Artists is meant to show the modernity of Nativeness, Indigeneity and Aboriginality, and that was exactly what I was trying to do by using some of their artwork in my photo essay. The piece that I used was a photo of two people, presumably Native/Indigenous/Aboriginal, with, “What we do to the mountain, we do to ourselves,” written over their profiles. I felt this photo encompassed much of what I have read about Native/Indigenous relationality to the natural world around us. The final photo is a photo I took of a piece of block-out poetry I created from María Lugones’, “Toward a Decolonial Feminism.” The final photo is meant to conclude that, though we are taught to believe that colonization is in the past tense, it has happened to the world, and it is over, the effects of it last centuries, generations. It is, in fact, still with us.
Caption:
- This photo essay was created to convey the decolonial nature of artwork created by colonized peoples and communities.
- The first photo illuminates the prominence of European colonization around the world. (Map: European colonialism conquered every country in the world but these five, https://www.vox.com/2014/6/24/5835320/map-in-the-whole-world-only-these-five-countries-escaped-european)
- The second photo is apiece of Modern Ledger Art by Dolores Purdy (Corcoran), a member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma. (https://www.dolorespurdy.com/artworks)
- The third photo is a screenshot of a piece of artwork used by Maori curator, Matariki Williams, in one of their shows to help construct their “thinking around decoloniality.” (https://frieze.com/article/decolonial-documents-part-four)
- The fourth photo is also a screenshot, but from a video found on blog/site unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com used to promote an event that happened in August 2014; Decolonizing street art: Anticolonial Street Artists Convergence, in Montréal, Québec. (https://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/2014/05/13/support-decolonizing-street-art-anticolonial-street-artists-convergence/, 2:09)
- The last photo summarizes what the photos that came before it attempted to; colonization is not in the past tense, we are not beyond it, it is still with us. (my own photo)
