The Shirt by Shelley Niro, 2003.
Niro’s work consists of a connecting series of photographs that should be read together as a whole narrative. The images are set in a pastoral landscape, and each subsequent photograph offers an increasingly incisive statement on the colonization of the land that once belonged to aboriginal peoples.
Shelly Niro was born in Niagara Falls, NY in 1954. She is a member of the Mohawk Nation, Iroquois Confederacy, Turtle Clan, Six Nations Reserve. She is currently based in Brantford, Ontario, and works in a variety of media, including beadwork, painting, photography, and film. (via virtual museum)
[Image Description: Photoset of 7 photos. The first 5 depict the same Native woman wearing a white t-shirt blue jeans, aviator glasses and an American flag bandana holding her hair back. The white t-shirt has different words in each picture. The woman stands in a green field and there are mountains and buildings in the distance.
Font on each shirt:
Photo 1: This Shirt
Photo 2: My ancestors were annihilated, exterminated, murdered and massacred
Photo 3: They were lied to cheated tricked and and deceived
Photo 4: Attempts were made to assimilate colonize enslave and misplace them
Photo 5: And all’s I get was this shirt
The next photo shows the same woman without her shirt, bandana or glasses.
The last photo shows a white woman with red hair and red jeans wearing the glasses on her head, the bandana around her neck and the shirt that reads “And all’s I get is this shirt” standing were the Native woman was standing before.]
Damn! My first reaction to this was to laugh because of the last two photos. Sometimes, it’s easier to laugh and it’s necessary to laugh and then get angry. That woman in the last photo is so fucking coy and obnoxious and her stance and pose just legit had me cackling because it’s the epitome of the carefree white girl.
^^^
CommentaryThe last picture is an excellent representation of cultural appropriation if you think of “the shirt” as the vestiges of culture/tradition/heritage left to Native Americans like traditional garb. Take, take, take. Just think about that the next time you’re tempted to put feathers in your damned hair.