Courtesy of the Amon Carter Museum of American Art
"Indian Man on the Bus, Mission District, San Francisco, California," 1994, by Zig Jackson
Looking toward the new year, the Amon Carter Museum of American Art is getting ready for a showcase that no major museum has done before — a survey of contemporary Indigenous photography.
The Carter Museum announced Thursday that it will present "Speaking with Light: Contemporary Indigenous Photography" from Oct. 30, 2022 – Jan. 22, 2023. The exhibit will highlight nearly 100 works by more than 30 Indigenous artists over the past three decades, meant to "reclaim representation and affirm their existence, perspectives, and trauma," according to the museum. Prints by Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Wendy Red Star, and Nicholas Galanin; site-responsive installations by Kapulani Landgraf, and Jolene Rickard; and a new large-scale photo weaving by Sarah Sense, commissioned by the Carter, are among the works that will be on display.
Accompanying the exhibit will be a publication of the same name by Radius Books, authored wholly by Indigenous scholars, including Jennifer Nez Denetdale, Dylan Miner, Jolene Rickard, and Paul Chaat Smith.
The exhibit was organized by the Carter and co-curated by the museum’s senior curator of photographs, John Rohrbach, with artist Will Wilson, a citizen of the Navajo Nation and photography program head at Santa Fe Community College.
“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,” co-curator Will Wilson said in a statement. “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.”
More information is available here.
