The 400 YEARS PROJECT

A photography collective looking at the evolution of Native American identity, rights, and representation.

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PHOTO ESSAYS
Ryan RedCorn
Edited by Sarah Leen

Osage Cooks, Osage Reservation, Oklahoma

Osage Cooks are esteemed and honored within the Osage community. They are regularly called upon for funerals, handgames, and ceremonies, to cook large amounts of food. Ryan RedCorn (Osage) photographs the cooks in front of ceremonial fabrics along with the utensils of their choice, many of which are passed down from generation to generation.

Madison Hye Long
Edited By Elizabeth Krist

Contemporary Artisans Defining Cherokee Culture

“Where I come from, art is something that has come to us through thousands of years,” says Madison Hye Long (Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians). Madison's series is rooted in her belief that Native Americans should “not be defined by blood quantum or by enrollment card, but by the richness of our history and artistic achievements, the beauty of what has been passed down, and how we as Native artists are able to express ourselves in the modern age.”

Ash Adams
Edited by Sarah Leen

To Become A Person

Ash Adams’s series, “To Become A Person,” explores coming of age in Indigenous rural Alaska in the wake of colonization and during a time of rapidly advancing technology, climate change, and cultural resiliency. Many of the youth, the grandchildren of the boarding school era, grapple daily with the side effects of generational trauma while becoming leaders of the future.

Kali Spitzer
Edited by Brian Adams & Sarah Stacke

An Exploration of Resilience and Resistance

Kali Spitzer (Kaska Dena and Jewish) makes tintype photographs of her BIPOC, queer, femme, trans, and gender non-conforming community from an Indigenous perspective to challenge pre-conceived notions of race, gender, and sexuality. “An Exploration of Resilience and Resistance” is about identity, culture, strength, vulnerability, and love. The series expresses her community’s experience of becoming more empathic, empowered people in the face of the hardships they have endured and seeks to share with the viewer not just their pain, but their spirit and perseverance.

TEXTS
Barbara R. Duncan

Every Place Was Someone’s Home

1620. If you’re white and grew up in America, you probably think of this year as very remote in time. Wilderness. Pilgrims. Indians. Thanksgiving. If you have a thought for American Indian people, you might think this was a golden age for them too, when their traditions were strong and untouched by European ways, when they lived in a vast wilderness. No. What you’re thinking is wrong. There’s more to the story. You can learn more about the story, and you can still act in this story. It’s not over.

LIBRARY
A Library of Native American Photographers from the mid-1800s to the Present
The photographers here range from enthusiasts to professionals. All are dedicated to the craft and sharing Native American stories.