Topic 3, Rhinoceros; Photographing the Past during the Present

Identify: Cree (tribe) *

The Cree (Cree: Nēhiyaw; French: Cri) are one of the largest groups of First Nations in North America, with over 200,000 members living in Canada. The major proportion of Cree in Canada live north and west of Lake Superior, in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and the Northwest Territories. About 38,000 live in Quebec. In the United States, this Algonquian-speaking people historically lived from Lake Superior westward. Today, they live mostly in Montana, where they share a reservation with the Ojibwe (Chippewa).The documented westward migration over time has been strongly associated with their roles as traders and hunters in the North American fur trade.

Identify: Crow (tribe) *

The Crow, called the Apsáalooke in their own Siouan language, or variants including Absaroka, are Native Americans, who in historical times lived in the Yellowstone River valley, which extends from present-day Wyoming, through Montana and into North Dakota, where it joins the Missouri River. In the 21st century, the Crow people are a Federally recognized tribe known as the Crow Tribe of Montana, and have a reservation located in the south central part of the state.

Identify: Gerald McMaster *

Dr. Gerald McMaster has over 30 years of international work and expertise in contemporary art, critical theory, museology and Indigenous aesthetics. His early interests concerned the lack of representation of Indigenous artists in art museums, and raising concern to how culturally sensitive objects were displayed and represented in ethnology museums. His experience as an artist and curator include conducting research, collecting art, and producing exhibitions. His projects have created awareness and a throughout understanding of transnational Indigenous visual culture and curatorial practices. Throughout his career, he has become a prominent leader in representing Canada at a number of prestigious international events. Currently, McMaster is collaborating on three international projects in the contents of Europe, Australia, and South America.

Identify: Vine Deloria, Jr. *

Deloria, Vine, Jr. (26 Mar. 1933-13 Nov. 2005), Native-American activist, writer, and lawyer, was born Vine Victor Deloria, Jr., near the Pine Ridge Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation in Martin, South Dakota, the son of Vine Victor Deloria, Sr., an Episcopalian priest and missionary who served as archdeacon and assistant secretary of Indian missions for the National Episcopal Church, and Barbara Eastburn. Vine Deloria, Sr., was the grandson of Saswe, whose Christian name was François Des Lauriers, the son of a French fur trader and a Native-American mother. Saswe (the Dakota pronunciation of François) was a noted Sioux shaman and the leader of a mixed-blood band that adopted Christianity. Saswe's son, the father of Vine Deloria, Sr., was the influential Sioux chief Philip Joseph Deloria, one of the first Native Americans to become an Episcopal priest.

Identify: George P. Horse Capture *

October 20, 1937 – April 16, 2013) (A'aninin) was an anthropologist, activist, and writer.Horse Capture was one of the earlier Native Americans to be a museum curator. He was the first curator of the Plains Indian Museum in Cody, Wyoming, and worked for a decade at the National Museum of the American Indian, during planning for its new building on the Mall in Washington, DC. He was an enrolled member of the Fort Belknap Indian Community of the Fort Belknap Reservation of Montana.

Identify: Lucy Lippard *

is an internationally known writer, art critic, activist and curator from the United States. Lippard was among the first writers to recognize the "dematerialization" at work in conceptual art and was an early champion of feminist art. She is the author of 21 books on contemporary art and has received numerous awards and accolades from literary critics and art associations.

Identify: Jaune Quick-to-See Smith *

 is a Native American contemporary artist. Her work is held in the collections of the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Hood Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Define: patronage *

the financial support or business provided to a store, hotel, or the like, by customers, clients, or paying guests.

Edward S Curtis took more than 40,000 photographs and his goal was to preserve the Native Americans traditions and culture . Richard Throssel presented a view that went beyond the "vanishing" notion by responding to present-day realities that existed in the lives of those he was documenting and took more than 10,000 Native American people. 

Curtis limited to five hundred sets, the folios were sold by subscription for either $3,000 or $4,000, placing the photographs in the hands of only wealthy elites who could afford the steep cost. Throssel sold images in the "Curtis mold", while still advertising himself to the people he documented. 

Curtis's and Throssel's patrons influenced in their audiences, it depended on who was able to see the work. Usually wealthy elites who could pay the steep cost.

Curtis would staged his fotographs in a natural, tradicional, and cultural scenario only capturing those moments. While Throssel focused on an Americanized setting where traditions didn't play a part, even though the culture did execute them, he would omitte and limit the view to a colonized reality. 

I am a little bias since I also practice photography and I myself stage my photos and manipulate them to portrait what I want or to focus on an specific subject. I know that just like I do it many photographers erxecise this patterm. Only by cropping a small portion of a photograph you could shift and omits a lot of information. So I don't trust every photograph I am exposed to. 

All media, as well as social media can be shift out of context or be manipulated in various ways, is our choice to decide whether or not to believe that your source is trust worthy. 

The Hopi banned photography because of the results of a lingering memory of how it was used against Native Americans. I am pretty ok with been photographed, and I guess I don't really mind since I don't think anyone would pay a lot of attention to me unlike a celebrity for example, just because they are always in the public eye and are been judge by their actions easily. 

I educated myself from this text on these two photographers that twisted the same period of time to their necessities. I find fascinating how with art and photography we can create any context and scenario we desire, and that is what actually catch my attention about graphic design. The opportunity to combine art and photography to create a message. 

To photograph the past during the present it's quite easy actually there are various ways it can be done, for there are many houses that still to this day preserve a past decade's style inside and out. This is a perfect example, this house could be use as a stage in the present to capture an old astetic, if a model it's available then the attire and acting should be modeled according to that time. So as far as possible, yes! It's possible, but does not mean it's real. 

Photographers manipulate any mediums to achieve whatever their goal or message is . Just as Curtis did. Even if it means staging their work.