Visual Currencies: The Native American Photograph in Museums and Galleries

I authored one of the chapters for the new text, Visual Currencies: The Native American Photograph in Museums and Galleries. It was edited by Henrietta Lidchi and Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie. It is being published by our good friends at the National Museums of Scotland.

It was a great experience to write for both Henrie (Dr. Henrietta Lidchi) and Hulleah. They had a powerful and very conscientious premise for the collection of essays, which produced a unique incentive for us writers to go beyond the ordinary with our writing.

The text is due to be released on July 25, 2008. My photograph Masks, Masks and More Masks is on the cover and the caption reads:

The photograph Masks, Masks and More Masks presents a photographic vernacular that puts forth the notion that Tonto had a basic disagreement with Derrida’s theory of deconstruction, and even more critically, offers his own set of Indigenous semiotics that places his epistemological paradigm at the forefront of the mainstream visual culture.

Does this new book offer a shift in the basic paradigm of how Native American Photographs are interpreted? It does have elements that ask critical questions that historians have traditionally overlooked. Anytime you get a book that breaks new ground it is good for everyone, especially in academia where we are supposed to be on the forefront of research in our areas of expertise. Get it and see for yourself; I am very curious as to what critics in academia think of it, and especially the Indigenous intellectuals and the people whom are represented in photographs (who are in turn interpreted by various scholars).

ISBN-10: 1905267126
ISBN-13: 978-1905267125