Monthly Musings: American Identity
At the beginning of this month, the United States commemorated its Independence day. As we are in the midst of a global pandemic and nation-wide social uprising, this year’s marking of the holiday has increased the need to reckon with the legacy of our nation’s fraught history. Recently, Blue Sky received a thought-provoking archive exhibition submission from Stella Kalaw entitled American Identity, which brings together quite a few images from our online archive in response to current events.
above image by Greta Pratt: Deonte, 23 years old, from her series The Wavers
The title of this archive exhibition led me to think more deeply about the concept of American identity. When we think of the people who make up this country, who do we think of? And whose stories are told (or given space) and whose are left out? I’ve compiled a few portfolios from the archives (some of which are also featured in Kalaw’s exhibition) that provide glimpses into the lives of some Americans whose stories are often left out of the dominant narrative. These photographs focus on just a handful of experiences, yet they are important components of a multifaceted American identity.
Tom Jones, Gloria Decorah, 2001
In his 2003 exhibition of First People, Tom Jones photographs contemporary life within his tribe, the Ho Chunk Nation in Wisconsin. He presents an insider’s view that is intimate and honest, with straightforward black-and-white portraits that resist exoticizing Native American culture. Jones explains:
Historically it has been outsiders who have taken these photographs of Native Americans. We have generally been represented with beads and feathers; this example can be seen through the extraordinary photographic portrayals of Edward Curtis. While this is an aspect of our life the emphasis of my current body of work is focused on the members of my tribe and the environments in which they live, giving a name and face to the individuals and their way of life in our own time. Like many Native Americans the Ho Chunk People still adhere to traditional ways in spite of adapting to the white culture that surrounds them.
Although we only have a few images available on our own website, the artist’s website contains a more extensive archive of this series.
Nakeya Brown, The Edge of a Dream, from If Nostalgia Were Colored Brown, 2014
Another exhibition from the archives that confronts this tension between resisting and adapting to white cultural norms is Nakeya Brown’s 2017 Blue Sky show, Between Sheets and Seamless, which included images from six of Brown’s series about African American women’s experiences navigating feminine beauty standards. In If Nostalgia Were Colored Brown, the artist stages and photographs vibrant still lifes that contain vintage hair styling tools and album covers that feature Black female musicians coiffed in hairstyles from the past. These hair care objects and styles from another era also inform current hair politics, which Brown explores in her performative series, The Refutation of “Good” Hair. These photographs show women ingesting synthetic hair, creating a visceral metaphor for the various relationships Black women may have with these products and the beauty standards that they represent. In a 2015 piece for Pelican Bomb, Brown shares excerpts from her interviews with the models she photographed, in which they respond to their images and share their own experiences negotiating and asserting their own hair politics.
Nakeya Brown, Hair Portrait #2, from The Refutation of Good Hair, 2012
Mary Rojas is an immigrant from Izúcar de Matamoros, Puebla, México. She has been in New York for 20 years, living in Astoria, Queens. Image by Cinthya Santos-Briones.
In addition to Native American and Black cultural narratives, immigrant experiences have shaped American identity since this country’s inception, yet who is welcome to cross our national borders to live has shifted throughout our nation’s history and continues to be debated. Abuelas by Cinthya Santos-Briones offers a counterpoint to anti-immigration rhetoric through her portraits of Mexican immigrant women. Having lived in New York for decades, these women are now the elders—the abuelas—in their communities. Many have children and grandchildren living on both sides of the US-Mexico border and some must work unstable or exploitative low-wage jobs due to their immigration status. The artist invites each to choose where and how she would like to be photographed in her home as a way to communicate her unique sense of self. Santos-Briones writes that "in these photographs, the homes´ decorations become part of the women's wider symbolic recreation of culture, memory, and ownership beyond borders.”
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Despite our current restrictive immigration policies, many nations conversely experience the presence of the United States within their own borders. In Jim Lommasson’s 2016 exhibition at Blue Sky, he brought together two series that illustrate the effects of war on American veterans as well as the refugees who have come to the United States as a result of these conflicts. In Exit Wounds: Soldiers’ Stories–Life after Iraq and Afghanistan, Lommasson composes environmental portraits of American veterans who have recently returned home. Excerpts from the artist’s interviews with each soldier, as well as smaller snapshots that they took while overseas, help to form a more complete picture of each veteran’s experience abroad and subsequent reintegration into everyday life. What We Carried: Fragments from the Cradle of Civilization reveals the stories of refugees fleeing the Iraq War through the objects they were able to bring with them to the United States. Lommasson photographs these items and then asks their owners to write directly on the prints and elaborate upon each object’s significance. Lommasson’s motivation for making this work this work is simple: "we must take responsibility for the aftermath of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as at home."
Lommasson’s call to responsibility continues to be relevant within our current moment. How can we prioritize human life and work together to keep each other safe and healthy? How do we move toward a more just and equitable society that honors our multifaceted histories and experiences as Americans? And how can we work as collaborators within the global community to achieve these goals on a broader scale? These questions do not have simple answers, but I know that our power lies in finding these solutions together.
“Monthly Musings” is written by Exhibitions Manager Zemie Barr and highlights work from past and present Blue Sky exhibitions that share a common theme. Thanks for reading.