Shan Goshorn, Pawnee Woman in Field, from Earth Renewal Series
Shan Goshorn
1957-2018
Eastern Band Cherokee
Date
2002
Medium Specific
Hand-tinted, double exposed black and white photograph
Classification
Photograph
Dimensions
16 x 20 in. (40.6 x 50.8 cm)
Accession Number
2006.20.10.54
Credit
Gift of the Artist
Memo / Artist Statement
I don’t really consider myself a photographer- I happen to think of myself as an artist who uses a camera as a tool, much like I use paint or metal or glass. But even as a young teenager I was aware of the unique importance of photography to Indian people …. I watched anthropologists and historians gather information about us without ever sharing the results. It was in the mid-1980s when I joined NIIPA (Native Indian/Inuit Photographer’s Association, an international group in Canada), that I became aware of an interesting shift in this observation. No longer content to just pose in front of a lens, Indians were now picking up cameras, be it an expensive system or a cheap disposable, and we were taking our own pictures of ourselves.
Once I began looking, I soon realized that we had photography leaders to guide us and was lucky to meet the daughter of one of the finest examples, Horace Poolaw, an Oklahoma Kiowa. Born in 1909, Mr. Poolaw’s collection of negatives boasts imagery from every day Native life as well as events of historical importance but my favorite is from his days as a WWII aerial photographer. It is a self-portrait. In this photo, both Poolaw and another Kiowa (Gus Palmer) are in the nose-cone of a B-29. Both are also wearing full eagle feather war bonnets.
The Earth Renewal series was started in 1996 during a very difficult pregnancy. Bedridden for four months, I went MIA from my stance as a human rights activist and focused instead on giving birth to a healthy daughter. I had lots of time to think about my work so I spent it visualizing the details of a challenging series that addressed the nurturing and healing qualities for which I longed. The results are an ongoing body of hand-tinted black and white, double-exposed photographs (layered in the darkroom, not by computer) that illustrate the original teachings that we still honor our role as caregiver to our mother, the earth. The main focus of many of our ceremonies and dances is renewal… of the earth and hence, ourselves. Our commitment to this responsibility is manifested in physical, mental and emotional sacrifice; her gift to us in return is the grounding force that gives us warrior strength to continue our modern battles.
I started expanding the series in 2001 to address the issue of repatriation, the process involved in returning tribal artifacts and ancestral remains to Indian tribes from museum archives and collections. With the passage of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) in 1990, the tribes finally had a federal weapon to help them protect their burial sites from grave robbing and looting… a common, if unethical, means that many museums employed to acquire their massive Native American collections. I photographed the collections of several renowned museums and overlay the images with those of Indian people. These two combined series have become Earth Renewal, Earth Return. With these images, I want to challenge museum policy about “owning” ancestral remains and society’s way of thinking about Indian people as archeological studies and show them instead as the real people they are.
April, 2006
Once I began looking, I soon realized that we had photography leaders to guide us and was lucky to meet the daughter of one of the finest examples, Horace Poolaw, an Oklahoma Kiowa. Born in 1909, Mr. Poolaw’s collection of negatives boasts imagery from every day Native life as well as events of historical importance but my favorite is from his days as a WWII aerial photographer. It is a self-portrait. In this photo, both Poolaw and another Kiowa (Gus Palmer) are in the nose-cone of a B-29. Both are also wearing full eagle feather war bonnets.
The Earth Renewal series was started in 1996 during a very difficult pregnancy. Bedridden for four months, I went MIA from my stance as a human rights activist and focused instead on giving birth to a healthy daughter. I had lots of time to think about my work so I spent it visualizing the details of a challenging series that addressed the nurturing and healing qualities for which I longed. The results are an ongoing body of hand-tinted black and white, double-exposed photographs (layered in the darkroom, not by computer) that illustrate the original teachings that we still honor our role as caregiver to our mother, the earth. The main focus of many of our ceremonies and dances is renewal… of the earth and hence, ourselves. Our commitment to this responsibility is manifested in physical, mental and emotional sacrifice; her gift to us in return is the grounding force that gives us warrior strength to continue our modern battles.
I started expanding the series in 2001 to address the issue of repatriation, the process involved in returning tribal artifacts and ancestral remains to Indian tribes from museum archives and collections. With the passage of NAGPRA (Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) in 1990, the tribes finally had a federal weapon to help them protect their burial sites from grave robbing and looting… a common, if unethical, means that many museums employed to acquire their massive Native American collections. I photographed the collections of several renowned museums and overlay the images with those of Indian people. These two combined series have become Earth Renewal, Earth Return. With these images, I want to challenge museum policy about “owning” ancestral remains and society’s way of thinking about Indian people as archeological studies and show them instead as the real people they are.
April, 2006
Biography
Eastern Band Cherokee artist Shan Goshorn has lived in Tulsa since 1981. Her multi-media work has been exhibited extensively in the US and abroad. Her baskets belong to prestigious collections such as the National Museum of the American Indian (Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC), Denver Art Museum (CO), Gilcrease Museum (OK), Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (NM), CN Gorman Museum (UC Davis, CA), Minneapolis Institute of Art (MN), Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art (IN), The Museum of the Cherokee Indian (NC), Surgut Museum of Art (Russia), and the Nordamerika Native Museum (Switzerland). She has been awarded top honors such as (selected) First Place Basketry at 2015 and 2014 SWAIA Indian Market, Best of Class at 2013 SWAIA Indian Market, 2013 Heard Museum Indian Fair and 2012 Cherokee Art Market; the Innovation Award at 2012 SWAIA Indian Market; and Grand Prize at 2011 Red Earth Indian Art Exhibition. Goshorn's painted photographs (many of which address stereotypes and racism) have toured Italy with the Fratelli Alinari "Go West" Collection, and have been exhibited in venues including York, England's Impression Gallery; twice in NYC's American Indian Community House Gallery (once in a three person show entitled "Dispelling the Myth; Controlling The Image" and again in a two person show about repatriation called “Ghost Dance”); the Wheelwright Museum (NM); the Franco-American Institute in Rennes, France; the International Arts Alive Festival in Johannesburg, South Africa; and “BIRD 2005” in Beijing, China. In 2006 and again in 2009, she was one of 25 international, indigenous artists asked to present work at the conference Our People, Our Land, Our Images and Visual Sovereignty hosted by the CN Gorman Museum at the University of CA at Davis.
Shan has served on the Board of Directors of the American Indian Heritage Center (OK) as the first vice chair and of NIIPA (Native Indian/Inuit Photographer's Association, Canada), and has been appointed by the mayor to serve on the Greater Tulsa Indian Affairs Commission and the Arts Commission of Tulsa. She has also served on the Second Circle Advisory Board of the national native arts network ATLATL and as a consultant to the Philbrook Museum of Art (OK) for their touring basketry exhibition, Woven Worlds. Presently she is serving in an advisory position for the Tulsa City/County Library for their American Indian Collection, including the American Indian Festival of Words native author award.
Shan Goshorn is the recipient of the 2015 United States Artist Fellowship, 2014 Natives Arts and Culture Artist Fellowship, 2013 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, the 2013 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, the 2013 SWAIA Discovery Fellowship and the 2015 United States Artists Fellowship.
www.shangoshorn.net/about-shan/
Shan has served on the Board of Directors of the American Indian Heritage Center (OK) as the first vice chair and of NIIPA (Native Indian/Inuit Photographer's Association, Canada), and has been appointed by the mayor to serve on the Greater Tulsa Indian Affairs Commission and the Arts Commission of Tulsa. She has also served on the Second Circle Advisory Board of the national native arts network ATLATL and as a consultant to the Philbrook Museum of Art (OK) for their touring basketry exhibition, Woven Worlds. Presently she is serving in an advisory position for the Tulsa City/County Library for their American Indian Collection, including the American Indian Festival of Words native author award.
Shan Goshorn is the recipient of the 2015 United States Artist Fellowship, 2014 Natives Arts and Culture Artist Fellowship, 2013 Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship, the 2013 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, the 2013 SWAIA Discovery Fellowship and the 2015 United States Artists Fellowship.
www.shangoshorn.net/about-shan/