Spirit: Focus on Indigenous Art, Artists and Issues – Artist Reception/Talks

We are thrilled to celebrate the talents and stories of nine artists focused on the intricate nature of cultural identity.

Ten artists have created images that reveal expressions of pain, resiliency, resistance, healing, tradition, history and celebration.

Join us on Thursday June 10th at 7pm Eastern for a conversation with the artists and guest curator, Donna Garcia.

The exhibition includes NatGeo photographer, Kiliii Yuyan’s sweeping landscapes, internationally acclaimed artist Meryl McMaster’s dream-like self-portraits, Projects 2020  award recipient Donna Garcia’s historical recreations, and Sundance Film Festival invitee Shelley Niro’s work focused on women and indigenous sovereignty. Canadian documentarian Pat Kane, Fine Art photographer Will Wilson and newcomers, Jeremy Dennis, the collaboration of Kali Spitzer & Bubzee and photojournalist Tonita Cervantes round out the show. Donna Garcia one of the exhibiting photographers has assembled and organized this exhibition. It has been featured on Lenscratch and highlighted at the Atlanta Photography Group in Atlanta Georgia prior to coming to the Griffin Museum Photography.

Spirit: Focus on Indigenous Art, Artists and Issues is an initiative designed to educate the public, through lens-based art, regarding the true history of indigenous people and recruit advocates for indigenous issues everywhere, but with a specific focus on the US and Canada, where native lands and people аre still coming under attack everyday.

Curatorial Statement by Donna Garcia
In 2018, I created my series, Indian Land For Sale. I thought it would be a straightforward conceptual series based on the devastating consequences of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the histories that surround it.  As I began my research, I discovered that there was literally no original documentation around this event. I went to local archives, museums, even the area where the Trail of Tears began in Georgia – nothing but apologies.  I was very frustrated, but I am not sure why I expected it to be different, because the ultimate goal of genocide is to wipe out all traces of a culture. That is when my project became about replacing what had been omitted from history.

Indian Land For Sale made me think deeply about the bias of history in North America. So when Aline Smithson asked me to host a week of Indigenous Art, Artists and Issues on LENSCRATCH, my goal was to feature a group of artists who represented a broad scope of lens-based perspectives, from icons to innovators.

As I curated this amazing group of artists, what struck me as strange, was that I hadn’t seen their work previously in my exploration of Contemporary Artists.  Why had I not been introduced to the work of icons like Will Wilson or Shelley Niro?  While all of the artists who will be featured/exhibited make work around indigenous issues, beyond that they need to be included in today’s photographic conversation, their work is compelling, distinctive, imaginative and impeccably executed. It’s important to know what the icons know, what the visionaries see, what the searchers have found and how the innovators create and how, as a collective, they will change the paradigm of history moving forward. You need to know these artists because their visual perspectives have the potential to reshape, retell, and rewrite the history of North America – now is the time. – DG