Scouting for Indians 1992-2000
Recent photographs by Jeff Thomas
Carleton University Art Gallery
"There was a wall with some graffiti on it that said, 'cultural revolution'." Jeff Thomas, an Onandoga (Iroquois) photographer and curator describes the image, taken in Toronto in 1984, that began his photographic quest.
"My son used to come with me, "he says of his photographic forays, "And it just so happened, that my son (standing in front of the wall) was wearing a baseball hat with an Edward Curtis photograph on the front of it of a Cheyenne man, Two Moons."
"He was at Little Big Horn."
"It was a way of establishing a new ritual, an urban Indian ritual - me and my son. It was a way of saying, 'We're here. And we're part of it.'"
"I always felt there wasn't this tradition in the city." Thomas was part of the first generation in his family raised off a reserve.
"I was really taken with that phrase, 'discovery of the New World'. Indians had been moved off the reserve into a 'New World'," says Thomas. "Including my son in the photographs was a way to see physically how we look in the urban landscape."
Curated by Sandra Dyck, the exhibit opens with a series of archival copy slides, taken from the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the National Archives. Often made by government-employed anthropologists and archaeologists, the images show native people outside their homes or in studios, often sunburnt from working outside, their eyes clear and open. Sometimes they're dressed in European clothes, sometimes not.
Juxtaposed along side, using fairly large black and white prints with the occasional colour one, Thomas' focuses on the in/famous statue of the kneeling Indian scout that used to be at Champlain's feet at Nepean Point. In exemplary traditions of black humour, this section is called "the point."
Tossing in multiple references to tourists in the NCR, Thomas gives us "an unsettling sense of my own relationship to that Indian figure." It's a sculpture of historic controversy.
"In 1996 the Assembly of First Nations and their Chief, Ovide Mercredi, held a protest," says Thomas, "And asked the NCC to remove him 'cos he was in a subservient position and didn't have many clothes on."
Thomas was not in favour of the scout's removal.
"I felt that, as a street-based photographer, it provided a catalyst to look at this history - how has the Indian been configured historically by the European explorers."
"Are visitors to Ottawa "maybe hoping to see a 'real Indian'," Thomas muses, and "If so, "What do the tourists hope to see?"
In addition to the wildly disproportionate numbers of homeless native people, numerous statues of native people are located here. Referencing them as "sculpture site"(s), Thomas includes photographs of the native figures in the Bank of Montreal's crest on Sparks Street, the Indian hunter near Manulife Place on Queen, the Justice Building on Wellington and others. Continuing the ironic sense of humour, this section is entitled, "around the point". In each case, he indicates the street address as well as the cross street. Like tourists, we're given directions to the site, also all indicated on laminated maps near the start of the exhibition.
"Sculpture Site. Parliament of Canada, Centre Block, 111 Wellington Street Ottawa." Shot between 1998 and this year, the four prints, the top one in colour, make a cross-like formation. Surrounded by black and white details of indigenous people's faces, encrusted onto the building's sides, Thomas' colour image dwarfs them all. With the Peace Tower in the background, cut through by bright red and orangey-yellow bulldozers in the foreground, the lower section overflows with rubble. Thomas deliberately renders the lawn invisible and the main block on the verge of teetering back on itself from the distortion of a slightly wide-angle lens.
Entitled, "what's the point?", the final section includes photographs of Bear Thomas, Thomas' son, in some of these same locations. With Bear in dark glasses, throwing up walls between himself and the viewer through his facial expressions and body language, Thomas creates and/or documents a tension between his son and the people in the archive images shown earlier. As viewers, we never see Bear Thomas' eyes.
In the only self-portrait in the show, shot in front of the Indian Scout statue, Jeff Thomas shows himself in much the same way.
"My Brave (2000)". Below black and white close-ups of suggestive details of the Indian Scout statue, Thomas places quotations from and below on a shelf, complete editions of, the sexually and racially stereotypical writings of contemporary American writer Cassie Edwards along with the words, "for your reading pleasure".
"For me to see something like that, I don't want to throw it down and stomp on it. It's quite funny...once you start reading those books," says Thomas." When he was moved across the street, you could see his very chiseled butt."
"I feel like the photographs are a catalyst for talking."
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 2000
"My son used to come with me, "he says of his photographic forays, "And it just so happened, that my son (standing in front of the wall) was wearing a baseball hat with an Edward Curtis photograph on the front of it of a Cheyenne man, Two Moons."
"He was at Little Big Horn."
"It was a way of establishing a new ritual, an urban Indian ritual - me and my son. It was a way of saying, 'We're here. And we're part of it.'"
"I always felt there wasn't this tradition in the city." Thomas was part of the first generation in his family raised off a reserve.
"I was really taken with that phrase, 'discovery of the New World'. Indians had been moved off the reserve into a 'New World'," says Thomas. "Including my son in the photographs was a way to see physically how we look in the urban landscape."
Curated by Sandra Dyck, the exhibit opens with a series of archival copy slides, taken from the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the National Archives. Often made by government-employed anthropologists and archaeologists, the images show native people outside their homes or in studios, often sunburnt from working outside, their eyes clear and open. Sometimes they're dressed in European clothes, sometimes not.
Juxtaposed along side, using fairly large black and white prints with the occasional colour one, Thomas' focuses on the in/famous statue of the kneeling Indian scout that used to be at Champlain's feet at Nepean Point. In exemplary traditions of black humour, this section is called "the point."
Tossing in multiple references to tourists in the NCR, Thomas gives us "an unsettling sense of my own relationship to that Indian figure." It's a sculpture of historic controversy.
"In 1996 the Assembly of First Nations and their Chief, Ovide Mercredi, held a protest," says Thomas, "And asked the NCC to remove him 'cos he was in a subservient position and didn't have many clothes on."
Thomas was not in favour of the scout's removal.
"I felt that, as a street-based photographer, it provided a catalyst to look at this history - how has the Indian been configured historically by the European explorers."
"Are visitors to Ottawa "maybe hoping to see a 'real Indian'," Thomas muses, and "If so, "What do the tourists hope to see?"
In addition to the wildly disproportionate numbers of homeless native people, numerous statues of native people are located here. Referencing them as "sculpture site"(s), Thomas includes photographs of the native figures in the Bank of Montreal's crest on Sparks Street, the Indian hunter near Manulife Place on Queen, the Justice Building on Wellington and others. Continuing the ironic sense of humour, this section is entitled, "around the point". In each case, he indicates the street address as well as the cross street. Like tourists, we're given directions to the site, also all indicated on laminated maps near the start of the exhibition.
"Sculpture Site. Parliament of Canada, Centre Block, 111 Wellington Street Ottawa." Shot between 1998 and this year, the four prints, the top one in colour, make a cross-like formation. Surrounded by black and white details of indigenous people's faces, encrusted onto the building's sides, Thomas' colour image dwarfs them all. With the Peace Tower in the background, cut through by bright red and orangey-yellow bulldozers in the foreground, the lower section overflows with rubble. Thomas deliberately renders the lawn invisible and the main block on the verge of teetering back on itself from the distortion of a slightly wide-angle lens.
Entitled, "what's the point?", the final section includes photographs of Bear Thomas, Thomas' son, in some of these same locations. With Bear in dark glasses, throwing up walls between himself and the viewer through his facial expressions and body language, Thomas creates and/or documents a tension between his son and the people in the archive images shown earlier. As viewers, we never see Bear Thomas' eyes.
In the only self-portrait in the show, shot in front of the Indian Scout statue, Jeff Thomas shows himself in much the same way.
"My Brave (2000)". Below black and white close-ups of suggestive details of the Indian Scout statue, Thomas places quotations from and below on a shelf, complete editions of, the sexually and racially stereotypical writings of contemporary American writer Cassie Edwards along with the words, "for your reading pleasure".
"For me to see something like that, I don't want to throw it down and stomp on it. It's quite funny...once you start reading those books," says Thomas." When he was moved across the street, you could see his very chiseled butt."
"I feel like the photographs are a catalyst for talking."
Published in The Ottawa Xpress, 2000
