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Blog: Combating misrepresentation of Native people with photos

Monday, March 3, 2014

YouTube: Matika Wilbur: Project 562
Photographer Matika Wilbur (Tulalip / Swinomish) hopes to dispel misrepresentations of Native people through her efforts to capture members of nearly every federally recognized tribe in the U.S.:

Last December, Native American photographer Matika Wilbur embarked upon a journey with a staggeringly ambitious goal — over the next few years, she hopes to photograph members of every single Native American tribe. There were 562 recognized by the federal government when she started (and 566 now), hence the project's title: Project 562.
On the most basic level, her photography simply and elegantly seeks to answer an immeasurably complex question: what does it mean to be Native American today? There's no neat or easy answer to that query — not that American mass media has tried particularly hard (or at all, really) to come up with one. When representations of Indigenous people and cultures do appear in pop culture, the depictions tend to be either ridiculously stereotypical, shallowly and thoughtlessly appropriated, or they wander into the realm of offensive sexualized caricature with no connection to reality at all — an especially horrific tendency when you consider the fact that Native American women are raped and abused at epidemic rates. So, despite Johnny Depp's heartfelt insistence, Native children have nothing to look up to or identify with in his Tonto, and despite Chanel's tepid apologies, putting a model in a fashion headdress during a Cowboys & Indians-themed runway show is not "a tribute to the beauty of craftsmanship."
"I believe that the way that we're continuously misrepresented in mass media does have an effect on our younger generation," Matika tells me over the phone when asked to explain the motivation between Project 562. "It does shape the consciousness. It does set up a racist experience for my theoretical children and my nieces and nephews. If I can be a part of changing that, I'd like to be."

Get the Story:
Combating the Misrepresentation of Native Americans, Through Photos (Jezebel 3/2)

Also Today:
What is Indian enough? (The Sheridan Press 2/28)