Sofia Sireno
One of Matika Wilbur photographs for the 2018 ‘‘Honoring Our Medicine’’ Canoe Journey, Paddle to Puyallup. Image taken from: http://www.project562.com/blog/every-person-living-in-the-northwest-should-know-this-history/
“Photographs give us the sense that we can hold the whole world in our heads... To collect photographs is to collect the world”; I pondered long on these words after reading Alicia Elliot’s memoir “A Mind Spread Out On The Ground”, a complex, personal story of an indigenous woman fatally intertwined with the intergenerational colonial trauma lived by native people of North America.
In her essay “Sontag, In snapshots: Reflecting on “In Plato’s Cave” in 2018”, Elliot states how through the act of taking pictures human beings advert the possibility to squeeze experiences and knowledge into single images; in a way, taking photographs can be a tool to assert our will and power. Photographs can and have been employed as an imperialist, racist weapon, as a way to inflict control over their subjects, to dictate meaning, prototypes and standards. In common knowledge, photographers’ agency and lack of agency of their subjects often get overlooked; “it’s assumed that photography is passive, merely showing the world as it is”. But the photos we see of indigenous people have often been crafted by someone who was not them: misrepresentation and idealistic imagery easily supersede indigenous nations’ cultural and historical complexity.
Book Cover of A Mind Spread Out On The Ground by Alicia Elliott
But how can empathy, understanding and education exist in a highly simplistic and aesthetic driven context? This, I think is why Matika Wilbur’s “Project 562”–562 is the total of indigenous nations recognized by the United States Government, a number that is updated regularly (right now, it is 574)–matters so much.
To date, she has visited more than 400 indigenous nations. Her decade-long work aimed to represent every Indigenous tribe: “each of the people I photographed chose what to wear, where to be photographed, and which questions they wanted to answer. They share in the mission to change the way we see Native America” spoke Matika.
John Sneezy, San Carlos Apache - Head Man Dancer. Image taken from: http://www.project562.com/blog/decolonizing-sexuality-at-the-largest-two-spirit-pow-wow-in-the-nation/
Her subjects have agency and decide how to be represented. They determine what cultural aspects to show about themselves. They choose whether to wear traditional garments or everyday clothes. The project gives space to indigenous voices in their own portrayal. Indeed, self-representation can lift queries on the anthropological objectivity of a project as such, but Matika’s work cannot be reduced to an ethnographic field trip: its variety tells us about contemporary indigenous identities and millenarian cultures. It overcomes decades of summary information and lazy perceptions. It portrays varied voices and opens our eyes to a much more compound reality than the one western culture depicted. “Do you think indigenous people are relics? That they don’t belong in cities? Do you think they should only be wearing modern clothing in these spaces? Do you think they should just assimilate already?” Asks Eliott. Look closely. And think again.
Do you want to know more?
Follow Project 562 on Instagram with this link:
Otherwise, go read Matika’s ‘‘From The Road’’ blog:
If you are interested in reflecting on historical representation of Indigenous People, I recommend Zachary R. Jones essay: ‘‘Images of the Surreal: Contrived Photographs of Native American Indians in Archives and Suggested Best Practices’’.
LinkedIn page/Instagram profile of the author of this article: