Visual Currencies: Reflections on Native American Photography

Visual Currencies in an edited collection of essays coming out of sessions held at the Native American Art Studies Association Conference, Phoenix, 2005. The seven contributors focus on the far-reaching influences of photography on Native American communities, and the possibilities that it currently presents. The essays present issues at the root of contemporary photographic practice, within and beyond Native American and First Nations communities, exploring the values, or currencies, attributed to to photographs by practitioners and institutions. John Tagg has memorably described the history of photography as that of an insistent practice, and this aptly and vividly conveys the legacy of Native American and First Nations photography in its varied perspectives presented by the authors and contemporary photographers who have contributed to this edited volume. By focusing on institutional repositories and contemporary photographic practice, Visual Currencies invites reflection into the 'material turn'; specifically addressing the significance of early photographs and the impact of digital media, the relationship between artistic practice and archival resources, the enactment of sovereignty and the performance of memory, operating at an individual and communal level

Image: We'wha, the beloved

An illustration by Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, born into the Bear Clan of the Taskigi Nation, and born for the Tsinajinnie Clan of the Dine Nation