What Native Looks Like Now: Embodiment in Contemporary Indigenous Art, 1992–Present
What does it mean to look Native and what do the stereotypes of Indigenous appearance have to do with actually being Indigenous in the 21st century? This dissertation examines embodiment as a concept and an artistic strategy utilized by four contemporary Indigenous artists—Fiona Foley, Christian Tho...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2021
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| Online Access: | http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/41515/ http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/41515/19/Tyquiengco%20Final%20ETD.pdf |
| Summary: | What does it mean to look Native and what do the stereotypes of Indigenous appearance have to do with actually being Indigenous in the 21st century? This dissertation examines embodiment as a concept and an artistic strategy utilized by four contemporary Indigenous artists—Fiona Foley, Christian Thompson, Kent Monkman, and Erica Lord—who explore these questions in their artistic practices. Badtjala artist Fiona Foley (Australian, b. 1964) emphasizes Aboriginal womanhood in her multimedia practice, drawing from research and her Badtjala heritage. Christian Thompson (Australian, b. 1978) uses himself as a medium to enact Aboriginality as an evolving concept, exploring his Bidjara, Welsh, and Jewish background within the space of museums. Similarly, Fisher River Cree Nation artist Kent Monkman (Canadian, b. 1965) takes up his invented character Miss Chief to correct wrongs of colonialism, emphasizing intersectionality as a Two-Spirit, mixed Cree artist. The artist Erica Lord (American, b. 1978) uses her practice to demonstrate how, as a Tanana Athabascan and multiethnic woman, her appearance shifts while her connection to her family and community does not. This study considers how the histories of these artists’ communities, which became Indigenous through the forces of settler colonization, is reflected in these artists’ lived experience, and is reflected upon in their practices. Collectively, their art demonstrates the ways in which embodiment can articulate Indigeneity, not as an essential identity but as a plethora of possibilities. Drawing from art history, and Native and Indigenous studies, this dissertation theorizes Indigeneity as an expansive and relational identity, irreducible to existing stereotypes. |
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