Mr Cross told the BBC that Mr Curtis saw his mission as “to document what he thought of as a ‘dying race'”. He cut out “signs of modernity” such as clocks from his photographs, giving the illusion that the indigenous people were frozen in time and living only in the past, she said. By perpetuating the myth of the “vanished Indian,” Curtis erases the “reality” that indigenous peoples “have adapted to new technology over time,” she says.
By contrast, Red Claw asserts the continued survival and presence of all Indigenous peoples by making themselves the main subjects in each season’s photographs, Cross says. “By wearing tribal regalia, she’s saying, ‘We’re here, we’re not going anywhere.’ And what she’s wearing is not a costume or a stereotype. It’s a piece of history that connects her to her ancestors and her culture, and that will continue into the future.”
Still, Red Star considers Curtis’ relationship with indigenous peoples to be complex. “His ability to photograph different communities came through his translation, who is a tribal member himself… He had information he got from my community. alexander upshaw…So when I look at pictures of Curtis now, I think of Upshaw,” she says.
For Red Star, satire is a tool. Her multimedia works integrate photography, collage, sculpture, and historical artifacts. They are in collections such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and in 2024 she MacArthur Fellowship.
Source: BBC Culture – www.bbc.com
