Day: December 19, 2017

gogogadgetgoat:

kateoplis:

“If you don’t drink warm blood and eat fresh meat, you are doomed to die on the tundra.”

“If there were no reindeer we would not exist.”

“As our ancestors live, so will we live; as our ancestors died, so will we die.”

“Better to see once than to hear many times.”

Gorgeous profiles of the world’s indigenous tribes in Jimmy Nelson‘s Before They Pass.

I both kind of love and hate this as a member of a ‘dying’ people. Exposure can be great, it can be a wonderful tool to preserve knowledge, spread information, education. However, it seems a common complaint that a lot of Jimmy Nelson’s images are from a very exoticfying place. He presents these images as factual, honest representations of these peoples.

I also hate the way these groups are presented as dying out, that it is inevitable that with the future coming at a crushing pace that indigenous people are an unfortunate and unavoidable casualty. We are not dying out. We are fighting to survive, exist, and advance in our own ways. To paint us into the past ignores our present struggles. Ignores that the Dani people, photographed for Mr. Nelson’s book, face constant violence from 

he Indonesian military while they struggle for their freedom.

Mr. Nelson claims his goal was to show “.. they have a wealth and a pride. It’s not only about material possessions. I shoot from a very personal, aesthetic point of view

“ But he mentions the problem right there; a personal point of view. How can he show representation of a culture he has no part of with a personal point of view? That is just colonial gaze.

The pictures are beautiful, Nelson is a talented photographer, there is no arguing that. I just wish he took time and care into not painting indigenous people as some kinda of dying breed and focused instead on our truth of the struggle to get or keep our freedom, our cultures, or in some cases, reclaim what was taken and outlawed and hidden from us.

It’s also important to point out that these groups are not paid, despite Mr. Nelson’s steep price tag for his images. He does mention offering food or similar things, but that seems pretty small next to what he makes off these images.

“No money changes hands. You offer food, a ritual party with a goat or a cow. I spend a lot of time ingratiating myself. It’s narcissism. It’s playing on their vanity,” 

Source of quotes is an article by The Guardian, featuring commentary by leaders of indigenous groups.