Research Catalog

Title

Strong hearts : Native American visions and voices / [photographs by Nancy Ackerman ... et al. ; Peggy Roalf, editor].

Publication

New York, NY : Aperture Foundation ; c1995.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Ackerman, Nancy
• Roalf, Peggy

Description

119 p. : chiefly ill. (some col.); 29 cm.

Summary

"In Strong Hearts, popular visions of American Indians are challenged by artists and writers for whom self-representation is often as much a political as an artistic statement. For example: the darkly emotional scenes staged by Carm Little Turtle; Larry McNeil's metaphorical images of eagle feathers; Zig Jackson's satirical pictures of tourists photographing Indians; Maggie Steber's intimate portrayal of the Wildcat family; images of joy and of pain captured by the children in the "Shooting Back from the Reservation" project; and Jeffrey Thomas's close-up portraits of traditional powwow dancers. Three distinguished authors write about the struggle to overturn stereotyped perceptions of Native Americans. Paul Chaat Smith, cultural critic and writer, compares the nineteenth-century arms race that nearly wiped out his Comanche ancestors to the ways in which the camera has been used to form unyielding perceptions of Native people. Theresa Harlan, curator at the C.N. Gorman Museum, tells how constructed mythologies about Native people threaten not only their cultures but their very survival. Photographer and educator Jolene Rickard regards contemporary Native image-making as "documents of our sovereignty, both politically and spiritually." In their essays, all three show how the photographers in Strong Hearts use the camera to represent Native American people today. One hundred twenty-five images by thirty-four Native American photographers are complemented by poetry that echoes ancient story-telling traditions. From an anonymous Swampy Cree poem capturing the forces of Nature to Luci Tapahonso's narrative "Raisin Eyes"--a humorous, clear-eyed picture of modern love--this collection reveals enduring traditions central to Native American literature." -- Publisher's description

Series Statement

Aperture ; no. 139

Uniform Title

Aperture (San Francisco, Calif.) no. 139.

Alternative Title

Native American visions and voices

Subjects

• Indians of North America > Pictorial works
• Portraits
• Pictorial works
• Indian art > North America
• Photography, Artistic
• Indians of North America > Social life and customs > Pictorial works

Genre/Form

• Pictorial works
• Portraits

Note

• "The first comprehensive collection of contemporary Native American photography"--Jacket.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Ghost in the machine / Paul Chaat Smith -- The photography of Horace Poolaw / N. Scott Momaday -- Creating a visual history : a question of ownership / Theresa Harlan -- Social identity : a view from within / Zig Jackson -- I've always wanted to be an American Indian / James Luna -- Shooting back from the reservation -- Sovereignty : a line in the sand / Jolene Rickard -- An essay on rocks / Leslie Marmon Silko -- Carry / Linda Hogan -- Raisin eyes / Luci Tapahonso -- The feather series / Larry McNeil -- Kake is the place of no rest, it is / Robert Davis -- The Tlingit national anthem retold / Robert Willard, Jr. -- The land is our mother / Nancy Ackerman -- Plea to those who matter / James Welch -- The original people / Blackfeet tribal elders -- Strong hearts / Jeffrey M. Thomas -- In 1864 / Luci Tapahonso.

ISBN

• 089381637X
• 0893816108 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^^95076030^

OCLC

• 55989432
• SCSB-10184188

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library