Colonization

Chukotka: the Russian Arctic Book

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I am excited to announce the imminent release of my first fine-art photography book, Chukotka, on the Russian Arctic!

It’s produced by Kris Graves Projects, in a format (7”x8.5”) that makes it affordable ($28) while retaining beautiful print quality on textured matte paper. Pre-orders are available here.

At the edges of the Bering Sea and Russia’s Arctic coastline lies one of the wildest regions on earth. In winter, the land is indistinguishable from the ocean, a vast white ice sheet extending into infinity. In summer, the tundra unveils itself in shades of moss and the coastlines are packed with polar bears and walrus. 

Chukotka. The place where human destiny is carved by the cold.

We are still here: Photography as Colonization

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Today Survival International published a roundup of indigenous criticism of photographer Jimmy Nelson, and his book, Before They Pass Away. I get asked how I feel about Jimmy Nelson’s book all the time, and this is a deep conversation that often makes my day feel darker. Let me be clear– while I believe that Jimmy Nelson has good intentions, his work is classic colonization.

As indigenous peoples we are tired of being seen as having existed only in the past. We are still here, and suffering great traumas at the hands of settlers and colonial governments at this current moment. Jimmy’s work casts indigenous peoples as A) only beautiful in the past and B) nearly extinct. We are clearly nowhere near extinct (there are over 600,000 Maori living in New Zealand, and 150,000 Iñuit across the Arctic), and in the modernization of our traditional clothing and outward appearances there are the obvious signs of globalization’s effects on our communities.

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