Speaking With Light, now at the Amon Carter in Fort Worth and headed to the Denver Art Museum next year, features the work of more than 30 Indigenous artists.
One of the first major museum surveys to explore the practices of Indigenous photographers working today, Speaking With Light: Contemporary Indigenous Photography features photography-based works that spotlight the dynamic ways in which more than 30 Indigenous artists have leveraged their lenses over the past three decades to reclaim representation and affirm their existence, perspectives, and trauma.
Among many milestone works, this sweeping multimedia exhibition, on view at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth, Texas, features acclaimed prints by Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie (Taskigi/Diné), Wendy Red Star (Apsáalooke), and Nicholas Galanin (Tlingit/Unangax̂); site-responsive installations by Kapulani Landgraf (Kanaka ‘Ōiwi) and Jolene Rickard (Skarù·ręʔ/Tuscarora); and a new large-scale specially commissioned photo weaving by Sarah Sense (Choctaw/Chitimacha).
Co-curated by the Amon Carter’s senior curator of photographs, John Rohrbach, and artist Will Wilson, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and head of the photography program at Santa Fe Community College, Speaking With Light is on view through January 22, 2023, before traveling to the Denver Art Museum, where it will run from February 19, 2023 till May 21, 2023.
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About the Exhibit
Speaking with Light showcases the evolution of cultural affirmation and institutional critique in photography through the prolific output of young and mid-career artists such as Jeremy Dennis (Shinnecock), Sky Hopinka (Ho-Chunk Nation/Pechanga Band of Luiseño Indians), Dylan McLaughlin (Diné), and Cara Romero (Chemehuevi), along with their generational forebearers, including Shelley Niro (Member of the Six Nations Reserve, Turtle Clan, Bay of Quinte Mohawk), Tom Jones (Ho-Chunk), and Zig Jackson (Mandan/Hidatsa/Arikara). Brought together, these photographs, videos, three-dimensional works, and digital activations forge a mosaic investigation into identity, resistance, and belonging. Reflecting a wide spectrum of distinct cultures and creative practices, the exhibition is an outgrowth of the Carter’s broader collecting initiative dedicated to amplifying Indigenous artists’ contributions to the history of photography and American visual identity.
With more than 70 works, the exhibition is presented in thematic sections contemplating the camera’s role in shaping shared scars and empowerments.
Prelude — State to State
Enmeshing past and present, the exhibition opens with 19th-century photographs from the Carter’s collection, which were made in conjunction with treaty negotiations between Indigenous Nations and the U.S. government. These portraits illustrate Indigenous leaders’ use of the nascent medium as a tool for projecting power, agency, and dignity through their chosen attire as they posed for U.S. photographers. Amid these compelling images, Will Wilson’s Talking Tintype portrait of Enoch Haney (pictured) — former principal chief of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma — vividly carries these early photographic encounters into the present day, tracing a through line to questions of identity, governance, and sovereignty in the 21st century.
Survivance
In this immersive section, Indigenous photographers use humor, pathos, anger, and declaration to defy erasure and stereotyping. Among many important works demanding recognition of Indigenous existence, rights, and cultural commitment are Remaining a Child (2017) by the late Shan Goshorn (Eastern Band Cherokee); Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie’s Photographic Memoirs of an Aboriginal Savant (Living on Occupied Land) (1994); the 2005 video work Redman, by Erica Lord (Athabaskan/Iñupiaq/ Finnish/Swedish/Japanese) and Noelle Mason; selections from the Carter’s complete portfolio of Wendy Red Star’s Accession series (2019); and Nicholas Galanin’s large-scale Fair Warning: A Sacred Place — Supernatural Spirits and Animals (2019), also from the Carter’s collection.
Nation
Magnifying personal experience and assertion of self, this section complicates binaries of belonging and alienation as its works explore the meaning of “home.” Artists including Sky Hopinka and Cara Romero celebrate persistence and community, while Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena/Jewish) and Kiliii Yüyan (Nanai/Hèzhé and Chinese-American) confront isolation, poverty, addiction, and prejudices against members of the LBGTQ community. Also featured in this section is Alan Michelson’s (Mohawk member of Six Nations of the Grand River) important video Mespat (2001), presented on the artist’s 14-foot screen made of white turkey feathers, and Kapulani Landgraf’s site-responsive reinstallation of ‘Au’a (2019).
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Indigenous Visuality
The culminating section celebrates photography as a conduit for Indigenous worldviews with works that embrace spirit, myth, and a deep connection with the natural world while negotiating systems of settler colonialism. From Tom Jones’ Peyton Grace Rapp (2017), and Ryan RedCorn’s (Osage) Everett Waller, (Hominy Whipman) (2021); to the 1491s’ extended vignette Smiling Indians (2011); to site-responsive installations by Jolene Rickard and Sara Sense, the artists featured here construct a space of belonging in their work while calling on visitors and institutions alike to recognize the vitality of Indigenous cultures and outlooks.
The exhibition closes by drawing attention to the global reach of Indigenous visual expression with a hands-on presentation of the online database Indigenous Photograph.
“Through our vast range of lenses — cultural, geographic, generational, and gender — the creators featured in Speaking With Light crystalize a vibrant reclaiming of personal and communal representation,” says co-curator Will Wilson. “We invite visitors to lean into discomfort and counter-narratives to access a different understanding of our world — one that provides healthier relationships with each other and the earth. Drawing the institution and its audience into this Indigenous space lays the groundwork for the Carter to become an important site of contemporary Indigenous photography practices and research.”
The exhibition’s accompanying publication by Radius Books (available for pre-order) is wholly authored by Indigenous scholars and presents a summary statement on the dynamism of Indigenous photography today and fills a critical gap for the field.
Speaking With Light: Contemporary Indigenous Photography, through January 22, 2023, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, 817.738.1933, cartermuseum.org
