Wendy Red Star is a contemporary photographer and a multimedia artist who is a member of the Apsaálooke (Crow) tribe, raised in the Apsaálooke Reservation in Montana. Her work speaks to the complex interconnectedness of the present with colonial history in this country. From 2000 to 2004, Red Star studied art and Native American Studies as an undergraduate at Montana State University. She learned that the Crow Tribe’s traditional lands once stretched across most of present-day Wyoming and Montana (ca. 38.5 million acres), but it was reduced to less than 2.3 million acres between 1851 and 1905.
Red Star’s practice involves extensive archival research on the history and lands of the Crow Reservation. In her “1873 Crow Peace Delegation” project, she employs portrait photographs of the delegation members, using red pen to fill in the negative space with the individuals’ back stories and embellish certain details. For example, she highlights the peacock feather duster that Perits-Har-Sts (Old Crow) holds in this photograph, calling our attention to it. The rumor is that while visiting Washington D.C., the Crow Delegation attended a performance by a burlesque dancer, who gave each one a feather duster. Upon returning to the reservation, sub-chiefs and young Crow men wanted one of their own, thus creating a new fashion trend.
Red Star’s critical observations and extensive research on each historical image call for close looking and careful reading on the history of colonialism. The anecdotal story about feather dusters may be humorous, but it is also “a material reminder of the blatant disregard that government officials showed the Crow Delegation, and how far they would go to distract the delegation members from their crucial agenda of preserving Crow territories.” (p.50)
“It is critical to preserve and pass along culture, heritage, and shared values while also providing future generations with a sense of identity, solidarity, and empowerment.” – Wendy Red Star
Wendy Red Star’s work is currently on view at MassMoCA through May 2022.
Image 1: Front cover: Showing detail from “Apsaálooke Feminist #4,” 2016, Archival pigment print on photo paper, 35” x 42”
Image description: A woman and a child in Native American clothes posing for the camera
Image 2: Detail from “Portrait of Perits-Har-Sts (Old Crow) with His Wife, Ish-Ip-Chi-Wak-Pa-I-Chis (Good or Pretty Medicine Pipe),” 2017
Image description: Close-up of a young Native American woman gazing at the camera with texts written in red pen with arrows pointing to different parts of her. One arrow points to her head and the text reads 14 years old in 1873.
Image 3: Left page: “Portrait of Perits-Har-Sts (Old Crow) with His Wife, Ish-Ip-Chi-Wak-Pa-I-Chis (Good or Pretty Medicine Pipe),” 2017, Archival pigment print on photo paper, 25”x 17”
Right page: “Portrait of Crow Man, Se-Ta-Pit-Se (Packs the Bear or Bear Wolf) and His Wife, “Stays with the Horses,” 2017.
Image description: Page spreads showing two portrait photographs with texts written in red. Each portrait shows a man and woman in Native American clothes with a man holding a red feather duster.
