Module 3, Post 5

As more and more aboriginal photographers become recognized for their work, a thought struck me that I’m not entirely sure I can answer. How are we, as visual recipients, supposed to react and engage with their work? Once a photograph is out in the public realm, the way the dominant society engages with it is mainly determined by the rules (spoke and unspoken, written and unwritten) of how to view any kind of media. This poses a problem because the interpretation of a work is an inherent part of those unspoken rules of the dominant society.

I think that “refocusing” the lens of the camera for an indigenous presence needs to go hand-in-hand with teaching the dominant society to be sensitive to the work of others (this includes minorities and aboriginals), and to allow those who produce the work to explain it themselves. This is something the dominant society has lost, even for those who are a part of it. It’s a sense of responsibility and respect and humility for humanity that the dominant society appears to have lost in the realm of art, while this can be partly blamed on post-modernism, I think it can actually be traced much further back.

Here is an example of a media production company that has shared photographs online but has not really given much context to the images posted (this can lead to many interpretations):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/urbanrez/

Here is something that I think goes the distance to help out journalists/media producers give context to their work:

http://www.riic.ca/the-guide/in-the-field/aboriginal-customs-and-protocols/

This is what happens when an aboriginal is allowed to describe aboriginal work in the context of the dominant society:

http://www.ccp.org.au/flash/2009/11/glenn-pilkington/

I need to start wrapping up my research to make heads and tails of all of this.

Module 3, Post 4

I’ve found a couple of online e-books (accessible through the UBC library) that deal with photography and representation with an emphasis on Aboriginal people.

The first is titled Reservation X… from the brief glance I had it’s more about photography and art through contemporary Aboriginal eyes. Here’s a website that goes along with the book:

http://nmai.si.edu/exhibitions/reservation_x/intro.htm

The other book I found is Photography’s Other Histories. This one is a bit more broad in its intent, and the essays tend to focus more on social-activist issues in photography within a post-colonial framework. I’ll have to comb through the essays to see if there are any nuggets in there.

[update]

There are indeed some golden nuggets in the latter book. One fascinating essay is Poignant’s “The Making of Professional Savages”. What a tragic tale for those australian aboriginals, specially Tembo whose body was eventually displayed in a museum, and ended up in almost being forgotten in the basement of a funeral home. Who would’ve guessed the circus had such a strong influence on Native American objectification.

Pinney, C., & Poignant, R. (2003). The Making of Professional “Savages” From P.T. Barnum (1883) To the Sunday Times (1998). Photography’s other histories (pp. 55-84). Durham: Duke University Press.

Module 3, Post 3

Theresa Harlan’s essay “Adjusting the Focus for an Indigenous Presence” has really helped to focus (no pun intended) many of my thoughts. I really enjoyed the way she ends it:

“While frontier photographers believed they were photographing our demise, anthropologists and historians were elegizing us and tourists were buying images of us at the “end of the trail”–we, as indigenous people, were just beginning to focus the camera for an indigenous presence.

Hot damn! (sorry, I know that’s rather uncouth for a graduate level course) but she really nailed it here. They’ve always been here, but the way they have been portrayed by the dominant society has led them to what she earlier discusses as the “absence of our presence”…in a nutshell they have been here, but have had no platform to share and represent their culture, besides what was given to them by the dominant society.

The camera is a powerful technology because the photographs it can produce have the power, like so much art, to really affect the emotional response of its viewer.

After looking at some modern work, one thing that has struck me by a number of contemporary photographers is there seems to be a passive aggressive stance as to why they photograph. Larry McNeil’s work “Fly by Night Mythology” contains passages that are at times uncomfortable and a turn-off. Rather than represent his culture, he brings up the past and throws it at his viewers expecting them to make sense of it without much context. This is so different from the work of someone like Nadya Kwandibens or Lee Marmon, who represent first-nations in a more positive light, and in a context that shows their character and strengths.

Module 3, Post 2

Much of what Ginsberg has to state about the faustian nature of using media for self-representation is fascinating. It’s something that other philosophers have alluded to, though not in quite such devilish language.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/can.1991.6.1.02a00040/abstract

If you get a chance to read this article, and then try to understand Flusser’s “Technical image” and the science behind it and Van Gerwen’s “Abstract Image” in light of this “Faustian” contract, you’ll see how tricky photography can be when it comes to self-representation.

Here’s a little discussion on Flusser:

http://mandptheory.wordpress.com/2009/03/01/vilem-flusser-the-technical-image/

I think this is where living out cultural obligations can help to fend off the reinterpretation of images. I say this because an image is an object, and like any object, it can be reinterpreted if it’s not lived out/used. I think this goes back to the notion that just because modern society deconstructs everything, doesn’t mean we need to stop living out our moral/ethical and social responsibilities to our communities/beliefs.

I’ve been reading the book “Our People, Our Land, Our Images” and something that Hulleah J. Tsinhhnahjinnie said is where I think I’ll be developing my thesis…”The very same medium that exacerbated colonial tensions is now used as a tool for Indigenous empowerment and sovereignty by exerting an authority over how, when, and why Indigenous peoples choose to be imaged.” This little statement can be further examined in terms of technological intent of the camera, which is something that philosopher Willem Flusser discusses…because it’s a Western technology, does that necessarily change the empowerment and the sovereignty Indigenous people have recovered? What I mean by this is the self-representation afforded to them adulterated in some way so that it’s almost a facade, a shadow of the true representation? I suppose this could be said of all photographs. In the long run Aboriginal self-representation, will, I believe move into the realm of art, which is something that Ursula Johnson alludes to in her TED talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HHvaZKFgRA

My fear is once in the realm of art it becomes again an object to be placed inside a museum or a gallery. This is where a fine line between living out cultural obligations/aspirations becomes important to self-representation. The photograph itself is merely a representation, and that must never be forgotten or supersede what goes on in the real world.

Tsinhnahjinnie, H., & Passalacqua, V. (2006). Our people, our land, our images: international indigenous photographers. Davis, Calif.: C.N. Gorman Museum, University of California, Davis