Master of Arts in Visual Anthropology

Indigenous Illusions Come to Life explores the spectrum of interaction that modern Native people bring to the consideration of the flawed Edward Sheriff Curtis salvage ethnography of a “vanishing race," by replacing a legacy of colonial representation and cultural misogyny with the voices of Indigenous descendants. Contemporary perceptions are actively transforming the curatorial and Native reception that grounds a reinterpretation of Curtis’s photographs, films and recorded testimony. The current movement towards the empowerment of indigenized visual media, by Native scholars, artists and activists, reveals issues of spiritual revival, natural resource control, economic exploitation, and cultural reclamation by shifting characterization of Native imagery from romanticism to ethnocentricity to self-advocacy.

 

Running time: 30 minutes