liberation from myths

"It is important to identify all of the old and new faces of colonialism that continue to distort and dehumanize Indigenous peoples-often pitting us against each other in battles over authentic histories. Colonization is the word most often used to describe the experience of Indigenous encounters with Settler societies, and it is the framework we are employing here. However, there is a danger in allowing 'colonization' to be the only story of Indigenous lives. It must be recognized that colonialism is a narrative in which the Settler's power is the fundamental reference and assumption, inherently limiting Indigenous freedom and imposing a view of the world that is but an outcome or perspective on that power. As stated, earlier, we live in an era of postmodern imperialism and manipulations by shape-shifting colonial powers; the instruments of domination are evolving and inventing new methods to erase Indigenous histories and senses of place. Therefore, 'globalization' in Indigenous eyes reflects a deepening, hastening and stretching of an already-existing empire. Living within such political and cultural contexts, it is remembering ceremony, returning to homelands and liberation from the myths of colonialism that are the decolonizing imperatives." -Taiaiake Alfred and Jeff Corntassel

Symposium 'This is Not a Silent Movie' Overview

The symposium 'This is Not a Silent Movie' held at the Portland Art Museum, along with the artist talks and openings around Portland: I.M.N.D.N at at the Art Gym, 'This is Not a Silent Movie,' at the MOCC, and BURY MY ART AT WOUNDED KNEE at PNCA have made for a phenomenal week of contemporary american indian art exhibits and discussions here in Portland, Oregon.---- The break out talks inspired by the 8 artists who presented led to topics of dismantling and reconstructing stereotypes, essentialist notions, and romanticism that concern the gaze on native american art today. We discussed the role the institutions; academic, art gallery, museum and market place have in participating in perpetuating these antiquated constructs, while talking about how they can be pinnacle in helping instigate change through redesigning curatorial decisions. We discussed different Indigenous artists strategies to tackling and resisting the pushes and pulls of commodification and exploitation, while upholding sacred inherited tribal knowledges and powerfully reinventing and evolving voice and vision through visual art tactics.---- We came to consensus that these conversations must continue and that we need to come together more frequently and incorporate workshops where we embrace MAKING together to build our relationships, bonds, which inspire the questions and dialogue brought up at the symposium.---- Thank you artists, curators, educators, supporters, and students who came to support, listen, engage, and dialogue as community. It was an honor to present and participate. It was so great to meet you all! Sepk' eec'a S? aa Maks

Speech Notes for Presentation at 'This is Not a Silent Movie' Symposium at the Portland Art Museum. Jan. 31, 2014

My name is Kaila Farrell-Smith and I am a Klamath and Modoc woman. Due to traumas after boarding school and tribal termination in the 1950’s my father Al Smith, left Modoc Pointe our ancestral homelands on the Eastern shores of the Klamath Lake and so I subsequently was raised away from our tribal lands as an urban “half-breed:” half American Indian and half hippie. Much of my source material to begin a painting comes from a desire to reach back through time and know my Klamath grandmothers, here their voices… I want to be in the canoe with my dad as a child collecting wocus, picking berries, living free in our tribal territory. Then this urge is coupled with confusing feelings of displacement, in-authenticity, and NOT knowing. I work to both Deconstruct and Reconstruct this personal romanticism I engage in, bridge fragmented memories and stories to the present and embrace this conflict and duality, which is what motivates my painting process. This piece ‘After Boarding School: In Mourning’ began as an attempt to reclaim and re-enliven Edward Curtis photographs of Indigenous women. As I built up a highly rendered and colorful oil painting of this girl it felt more and more problematic to me, it wasn’t speaking how I envisioned it would, rather it continued the silence and erasure by reinforcing the myth of the noble-savage-vanishing-race. This was infuriating to me and so I forcibly defaced the portrait with oil bars, this gesture or action visually cropped her hair off and I saw the piece emerge. My father and so many Indigenous children experienced the physical and psychological trauma at Indian boarding schools, this act of erasing Indigenous culture, family bonds and resilient tribal knowledge has impacted our entire American Indian communities to this day. This painting speaks of this history and passed on Indigenous traumatic memory through color, form, and oil paint, and it is extremely important that this dialogue is beginning to emerge within the walls here at the Portland Art Museum. I aim to depict the creation, the defacement, erasure, and the beauty that can be found in these disharmonious experiences of attempting to remember or understand Indigenous identity. This source material is infinite: second-hand family stories, colonizing documents (as in this print using my families land sale i.e a Indian Land “rip off” Deed) as well as the European gaze of Native American through photography. A new source material has been my not-knowing my Indigenous language. This is not about victimization, it is about being honest with myself and the extent of valuing and sharing my acquired culture knowledge, while simultaneously owning what I don’t know and why that is. This deconstruction and reconstruction of language and pictorial symbols like abstract American Indian basket designs to rock art petroglyphs has led to an exploration into abstraction with my recent paintings. I have found a formal space that is not as limited by preconceived concepts and the content of explaining personal narratives, which has allowed me explore both formal aspects of painting in relation to the contexts of disharmony, erasure, defacement, violent disruptions, that pair with and often transform into beautiful passages of balance and calm space. Piece from BURY MY ART AT WOUNDED KNEE: Blood and Guts in the Art School Industrial Complex. “Vision Quest Glyphology,” engages Indigenous geologies, including basalt rocks from Nich’I Wana (Columbia River) and from Wy’ East (Mt. Hood), they were collected after coming home from ceremony and are intended to interact as a reference, research, and source material for the paintings inspiration. They double as creating a physical space to enter and be included within the vibrational area surrounding the art. Much of my visceral, experiential and cultural inspiration is supported with academic research and that is usually focused around ideas of re-indigenization, decolonization, and efforts engaged in moving towards post-colonial Indigenous futures and re-defined hybrid border cultures. I am also interested in dialogue about Indigenous and Settler/Colonial binary and acknowledging these intersecting histories. Thinkers that have influenced these ideas are Linda Tuihui Smith, Andrea Smith, Coco Fusco, Guillermo Gomez-Pena, Gloria Anzaldùa, Lisa Brooks, M. Jacqui Alexander, Taiaiake Alfred, Jeff Corntassel, Cornel Pewewardy, Dr. Michael Yellow-Bird and my father Al Smith. Dr. Yellow-Bird was here at PSU last Friday evening and I was very inspired about his work on neurodecolonization, which he describes as occurring during Indigenous ceremony, drumming, singing practices that attain mindfulness through changes in the physicality of our brains. This mindfulness creates empathy for life even with what are considered in-animate objects. He then described colonizers lack of empathy, which was a result of brain disorder, which inspired this painting. These ideas and use of text are powerful and I see different uses of paint to express different avenues of my artistic interests and practice.