In celebration of Native American Heritage Month, we are featuring the important voice of Wendy Red Star through her provocative 2006 Spring, one of a 4-part photographic work. Here she “pokes fun at romantic idealizations of American Indians as ‘one with nature,'” depicting herself “dressed in traditional Crow regalia, in four majestic landscapes, one for each season. Inflatable animals, plastic flowers, Astroturf, and other artificial materials reference the dioramas of Native peoples often seen in natural history museums,” according to The Met.
“I used to hear expressions like ‘identity-based artwork is dead,’ and I would feel a sense of guilt about my work. But race, identity, and gender are not dead. They’re very much things that we need to be talking about. Now that I am older and have more confidence, I realize that the work I’m making is important and has a place and position in the world,” as she shared with National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
“As indigenous people, through colonization, we’re having to deal with some of the same dilemmas that other women are experiencing as well. There’s sexism—women are limited to certain things. I created the hashtag #ApsaalookeFeminist, and anytime I experience something or make something that is historically and culturally specific to Crow women, I’ll photograph it on Instagram with the hashtag. I believe that within the feminist movement there needs to be room for this Apsáalooke feminist,” she told NEA.
Red Star was born in Billings, Montana in 1981 and grew up on the Apsáalooke (Crow) reservation in Montana, immersed in Crow culture and art. As NEA points out, her father was a rock musician, her uncle was a painter, and her grandmother sewed traditional Apsáalooke regalia and beadwork. When reflecting on her childhood, Red Star said that although the reservation may have been poor economically, “Culturally, I grew up very rich.”
Red Star lives and works in Portland, OR where she explores her cultural heritage and the role of Native women through a variety of media, including photography, sculpture, video, fiber arts, and performance, according to her website. Red Star has exhibited in the US and abroad, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Museum, both of which have her works in their permanent collections. In 2017, Red Star was awarded the Louis Comfort Tiffany Award and in 2018 she received a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship.