Art from more than 100 Indigenous students was showcased Friday during the first in-person art show Haskell Indian Nations University has held since 2019.
David Titterington teaches art at Haskell. In his classes, he introduces students to Native American artists and situates their work within the context of their time.
For their final projects, students create artwork inspired by, or informed by, the artists who came before them, and use art to make a statement.
A unifying theme in modern Native American art is the expression of messages the artists find important. The art is intended to teach a lesson or share a message.
Common themes in Friday’s art show ranged from MMIW (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women), refuting stereotypes, environmental issues, depression and personal identity.
Remixing and reclaiming
There is a tradition of Indigenous artists “remixing” the work of Edward Curtis, whose infamous photography — intended to document the “vanishing Indian” — left a stereotypical and limiting legacy that Indian Country is still dealing with today.
Rasheed Shorty, Navajo, made a digital collage that invokes satire to show the absurdity of the stereotypes still applied to Native Americans today.
The work features the engine (a play on the slur “Injun”) of a Jeep Cherokee, overlayed on an Edward Curtis photo. The engine is wearing a stock photo image of a Plains-style headdress. This piece uses humor to transmit a message and was inspired by Cannupa Hanska.
Morgan Noisey, Cherokee Nation, was inspired by Steven Paul Judd’s work where he added pop culture icons to old photos. In this image, Noisey added elements of Star Wars to an Edward Curtis photo.
Lawrence Aguilar, San Ildefonso Pueblo, added an interactive element to an Edward Curtis photo, encouraging the audience to engage with the environmental horrors afflicted upon the people of San Ildefonso Pueblo by the Los Alamos National Laboratory.
“To this day no justice is being served for the Pueblo people suffering from the Lab’s detrimental actions against their ancestral land and its people,” Aguilar wrote in the artist’s statement.
There are hidden truths painted with UV-reactive paint to be revealed with flashlights which are available to anyone who chooses to look. The piece was inspired by Steven Paul Judd and T. Cannon.
Bradley Billy, Choctaw/Muscogee Creek, remixed Jeff Widener’s infamous Tiananmen Square photo by situating the faceoff in the context of Manifest Destiny. In the artist’s statement, Billy states that he hopes his “ancestors are proud of the fact that I will not let their sacrifice be forgotten. They will be remembered for their fight against American ‘democracy’.”
Ledger art
Ledger art is a distinctly Native American genre of art. It originated in boarding schools during the assimilation era of Federal Indian Policy. Indigenous children were prohibited from making art while detained in the forceful assimilation work camps, but that didn’t stop them. The resourceful children made art in ledger books because that’s what was available to them.
Many Haskell students continue this tradition, as shown in some works displayed Friday.
Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women
Violence against Indigenous women, girls, and Two Spirit people is an issue that some students expressed in their art.
Megan McCain, Diné, paid homage to Cara Romero’s “symbolically rich photographs of strong Indigenous women” with this piece on domestic violence.
McCain wrote that many people “feel trapped in their situation, like a ghost, and they try to process all the emotions and invalidate their feelings. … Under that ghostly shell of conformity is a strong Indigenous person waiting to be freed.”
Personal meanings
Taneille Lewis, Hunkpapa Lakota of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, was impacted by the Dakota Access Pipeline and the ensuing assault on Water Protectors and Indigenous sovereignty.
With this piece, she wanted to focus on the river that her people would “spend endless summer days and nights in.” About the river, she said, “if we did not protest, those memories would be swimming oil, genocide, and the dehumanization of our Native relatives, forever tainted for future generations.”
Isabelle “Jojo” Blackwood, Kickapoo, Potawatomi, and Cherokee, displayed an interactive piece. Her art is “just a little compact, and that’s okay.”
The travel-sized version of Stan Herd’s “Little Girl in the Wind” is a portrait of Blackwood. Herd takes lifesize images and makes them larger than life, and in this piece, Blackwood reversed that process by making a Herd piece “smaller and cheaper” to express how she feels compared to her mother — the “little girl” in Herd’s earthwork piece, Carole Cadue-Blackwood.
Tea Murray, Diné, was inspired by Damian DineYazhi. Murray grew up in the middle of the Navajo Nation reservation and would drive hours with their mother to get essentials. While driving through boarder towns they’d see American flags on the homes of non-Natives. Despite being citizens of the United States, Murray knows they live under white supremacy.
“Living in a colonized country, Indigenous peoples are forced to relive atrocities that are being perpetuated even today,” Murray wrote.
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Molly Adams (she/her), photojournalist and news operations coordinator for The Lawrence Times, can be reached at molly (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Check out more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
