Views from the Reservation

by Willis, John

• ISBN13: 9781935195122
• ISBN10: 1935195123
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2010-09-15
• Publisher: Center for Amer Places Inc

Summary

Professor and photographer John Willis is well aware of the exploitation that sometimes occurs when photographers enter impoverished communities for a project. So, in 1992, when he first traveled to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the southwest corner of South Dakota, he assured the elders of the Oglala Lakota Sioux that he would not be exhibiting any of the images he took while there. Over time, however, Willis earned the respect and trust of the community, and the eldershoping that the photographs might bring aid to their communityurged him to show his work. The product of several visits to the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation,Views from the Reservationis meant to open our eyes, minds, and hearts to the life, culture, and conditions of the Oglala Lakota people. With his insightful and complex images Willis enlists several other voices to offer a more complete story: writer Kent Nerburn, who contributes an original essay; Lakota elders and Pine Ridge High School students, who offer poems; Emil Her Many Horses, the associate curator of the National Museum of the American Indian, Kevin Gover, the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Indian Affairs, and Oglala Lakota artist Dwayne Wilcox. Accompanying the book isHeartbeat of the Rez, a compact disc collecting traditional songs compiled by the author, the elders, and KILI, the radio station of the reservation.

Author Biography

John Willis is professor of photography at Marlboro College and coauthor of Recycled Realities, also published by the Center for American Places. His photographs have appeared at the George Eastman House Museum, High Museum of Art, Library of Congress, National Museum of Native Americans, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, among other places.