My partner for this assignment was Michael, he worked on words that responded to him based on what he had seen so far of my developing project. His words were:
- Cultural
- Insightful
- Maintain
- Significant
- Dignity
- Pride
- Sacred
- Mindful
The word that I finally decided to work with was "Pride". At the beginning of this project that started several months ago, it initiated as an educational piece. A map that would illustrate all the Native American indigenous people that existed throughout the Americas before the 15th century, not just modern day "The United States of America". I thought it was important to have a visual representation of such information inside a store where there are different hand made artworks from diverse indigenous backgrounds. The setting of such store with Native crafts, jewelry, ceramics, and clothing always lent itself with a similar question by customers such as: "These products are all hand made from real Native American people right? Not like from Mexico or Peru?" The map became a form of response or solution to these similar questions that were basically asked on a daily basis.
"Pride" comes to mind because it reminded me of my initial response to these remarks or questions. This project is a very intimate and personal one, perhaps it was my "pride" that unconsciously drove me to educate myself about all the Native people that I could find information about. Unfortunately, the media in the United States or Europe has taught people how to think about Native American people in a very stereotypical way, a narrow view on where they are from, how they dress, what languages they should speak, what they look like or even how they live.
Charles C. Mann, author of the book 1491 "New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus", wrote the following:
"For almost five centuries, Holmberg's Mistake--the supposition that Native Americans lived in an eternal, unhistoried state--held sway in scholarly work, and from there fanned out to high school textbooks, hollywood movies, newspaper articles, environmental campaigns, romantic adventure books, and silk screened t-shirts. It existed in many forms and was embraced both by those who hated Indians and those who admired them. Holmberg's Mistake explained the colonists' view of most Indians as incurably vicious barbarians; its mirror image was the dreamy stereotype of the Indian as a Noble Savage..."
The term "Pride" is a simple but personally complex term for my project because its what partially drives the evolution of my work. It seems important to me to educate those who wish to learn, but I myself have to learn where I came from, and where we are going as a proud cultural indigenous nation.
Hey Robert, i think that your project is beginning to take form nicely. What my main concern is how a map will function with the objectives you have set forth. A map is a brief, simple geographical overview of a place by no means attempting to explain more than the form of a place with a few words sprinkled in. How will you be able to captivate your audience with a map that doesn't dig deeper or even allows me the possibility to learn more. Your first map, got lost with an attempt to overload to much text onto one form, visually overwhelming and not allowing me to linger and take note. A map becomes a limitation to your project as i now see it. I want more from the project that goes beyond the names of tribes, what else? how are you going to actively engage an audience that is largely ignorant to these indigenous people?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if i read this right but how does the juxtaposition of your map with the Native craft store come together and play? I feel like play into the same problems, a piece of jewelry becomes representative of a culture and people, when in reality we know that is not the case. Just like a name of a tribe doesn't reveal much else? I could be completely off the mark, let me know.