On the Sea Ice, We Wear White: Lecture @ George Eastman Museum

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The George Eastman Museum is the world’s oldest museum dedicated to photography. In June I was honored to be invited to speak there, on a topic of my own choosing. Though exciting, I began to think about my work with indigenous issues– how to frame them for a general photographic audience who is generally unfamiliar with cultures as different as those of the Arctic?

The Personal Journey

The strongest photography is often deeply personal. After consulting my partner Addie, it made sense to address my own individual journey into the medium of photography and into indigenous subsistence communities. But here’s the rub:

If I want to speak about embedding within Native communities to a primarily non-Native audience, then I will have to address the complex issues of outsider photography.

On some level, unless the work is deeply personal and of one’s self or family, you can refer to all photographic endeavors as outsider photography. I think the bigger question is how do you develop true empathy when you are photographing another person, another community, and especially a different culture?

What is outsider photography then?

I think it has a lot to do with time and space. There must be time to overcome one’s personal cultural beliefs. There must time to experience things when they naturally occur. There must be time to listen and observe and experience without the camera. And finally, when you begin to shed your own cultural skin, I believe you must participate.

It’s like learning language. At first you are translating words in your head, and then the one day, one fine day, you begin to think in this new language. Concepts only understood in this new language begin to make sense. And even when you switch back to your native tongue, you are different, you are changed. That’s cultural immersion, and that is the bar I would like to set for documentary photographers.

Polar Bears, of course

I will of course, be showing and speaking about my specific projects, from whaling with the Iñupiaq and enduring polar bear attacks, to supporting suicide-prone teenagers on remote outposts in the Arctic. We’ll also the responsibility of creating new narratives of indigenous communities. I hope that talking about my process will engage and deepen the audience to the cultures of the Arctic.

Information

Kiliii Yuyan: On the Sea Ice, We Wear White
Thursday Oct 11, 6-7pm, Dryden Theatre
George Eastman Museum, 900 East Ave, Rochester, NY
Free to members, $6 (general), $3 (students)

Interview with The Photographic Journal

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There are interviewers and there are great interviewers. Lou Noble of The Photographic Journal not only has a distinctive vision in fine art photography, but he’s also a terrific interviewer.

We spoke at length about growing up as mixed-ethnicity child, about the struggles of Native peoples, and of course, about how photography has the power to illuminate and bring hope to those who are the most in need of it.

I would say most of the time, almost all of the work happens before I put my eye up to the viewfinder. I tend to be looking at light, I tend to be looking at gesture, at what people are doing, and of course the meaning of things. Meaning is always in the background, for me, so I’m always thinking about why is this important?

It’s a long interview. But if you have the patience to read it, it’s a great capture of how I think about storytelling and how our current storytellers will need to work to make the world hopeful for coming generations.

Îslandia featured by TIME

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My recent series on Iceland has been featured on TIME.com. Îslandia is a series that looks at Iceland from a distinctly fine art perspective and tries to get away from the grand touristed vistas.

More than 1 trillion photographs are made every year, according to some estimates, an unthinkable figure that compounds a longtime problem for photographers: How do you make your work stand out in such a crowded field?

I think this is a very good question, and also asks an even more important question– how do you make work that is deeper, that is a unique personal response to subjects that have been photographed an infinite number of times?

I spoke to TIME’s deputy editor Alex Fitzpatrick and multimedia editor Josh Raab about my approach. Find out my response to this question at TIME.com.

 

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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Anaiyyun: Prayer for the Whale premieres at the Seattle International Film Festival

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I’m excited to announce that my debut as a film director will be premiering at the Seattle International Film Festival on Monday, May 28th. This for my short film Anaiyyun: Prayer for the Whale. It will be screening alongside several other short films in a series called Legends of the PNW.

Anaiyyun: Prayer for the Whale is the story of an Iñupiaq whaling crew, living where the vast plain of ice meets the waters of the Arctic Ocean. During whaling, their lives are interminable periods of silent observation, punctuated by moments of terror. The ice hides its dangers—desperately hungry polar bears hunting humans, massive icequakes when sheets of ice collide.

Here on the sea ice, the Iñupiaq wait for the whale. When the whale does offer itself, it will take the courage and skill of the whaling crew, riding on the icy waters of the Arctic by a skinboat, to catch it. But in the long moments standing on the ice, protected from the wind inside a fur-lined parka, a timeless gratitude develops. In those moments, the patient act of waiting transforms into a prayer for the whale.

You can buy tickets for the screening here:
Seattle Film Festival: Anaiyyun: Prayer for the Whale

Launch of Natives Photograph Collective

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I am proud and honored to be a part of a new Indigenous collective of photographers, Natives Photograph. The New York Times Lens Blog has featured one of my images and has a writeup on our collective as well.

We still don’t tell accurate histories of our country and we still don’t frame the United States as a country built on stolen land,” she said. “So as we try to repair these narratives, they can’t just be told from outside perspectives. They have to be told from an inside viewpoint as well.

There are few indigenous peoples in media, and few opportunities for indigenous artists. Today we seek to change that with this Database of Native photographers. Special thanks to Josué Rivas and Daniella Zalcman for their dedication and hard work in creating this.

Interview with Light Atlas Creative on Photojournalism

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Light Atlas Creative is a mentorship program with Laura Valenti to help photographers transform their vision and lead vibrant, skillful, wholehearted creative lives.

She teaches teaches richly interactive online courses, works with emerging photographers, present lectures to photo groups, and curates exhibitions for galleries and festivals around the world.

I believe a documentary photographer is a journalist first, and an artist second.

I spoke to her after being introduced through Critical Mass, where she was a juror, and we connected well. Laura is a terrific interviewer and asks questions that draw out a lot about photography underneath the surface. I spoke to her about finding one’s unique vision of the world, and what makes photojournalism work for me.

  • Why framing a shot and clicking the shutter is least important part of taking a photograph.
  • Why photojournalism is not being a fly-on-the-wall
  • How to fund your long-term photography projects
  • Avoiding preconceived notions in your work
  • Why your personal identity is crucial for your photographic vision
  • Why publication alone should not be the final goal
Listen to the entire interview below:

Voices for Biodiversity: Indigenous Peoples as Guardians of the Land

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As I work on indigenous issues a photojournalist, I find myself increasingly working as both a writer and a photographer. The issues surrounding indigenous rights and ecology are rich and complex– it is the combination of images and words that tell the most powerful stories.

I’ve just published a story on how indigenous peoples are the de-facto guardians of biodiversity. We must challenge our current models of conservation by identifying Indigenous peoples as Ecosystem peoples – the original keystone species and cultivators of the wild places we love.

Today the world’s 300 million Indigenous people live in every inhabitable biome on earth, some of whom inhabit territories with the highest levels of biodiversity. Remarkably, the regions of greatest biological richness are often strongly correlated through their high diversity of human cultures, and many of those are often Indigenous cultures.

Many thanks to the inestimable Nejma Bellarbi of Voices for Biodiversity for entreating me to tackle this story and for great conversations as an editor.

Gift of the Whale: Feature on Topic.com

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People of the Whale, my series on the Iñupiaq culture of the Alaskan Arctic, has been published in print internationally but hasn’t been accessible in an online form. I’m excited that it’s now published on Topic.com, an online magazine with innovative storytelling. The story comes to life with animated gifs and an excellent layout thanks to editor Caroline Smith.

This version of the story gets into more depth on the the cultural importance of whaling but also how climate change is affecting the lives and traditions of the Iñupiaq.

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