HIGHLIGHTS in Photography

Priscilla Tacheney unifies traditional folklore and the natural beauty of the Navajo reservation in her award-winning photography

Priscilla Tacheney’s portfolio captures the inspiring stories and heroes of her youth reimagined from a contemporary perspective. recreating them with a modern style and subsistence.

She transforms the ancient tales of mother earth and father sky into masterful pieces of colorful artwork and designs that can reinterpret cultures for many generations to come.

“As a landscape photographer, I’ve become more aware of the deterioration of our planet’s natural areas,” says Tacheny. “Industrial, residential, agricultural and commercial expansion are resulting in climate change that is changing the landscape at an accelerated rate. Therefore it is important to me to capture and document the beauty that still exists today.

Hero Twins, photograph

“Standing outside in the total darkness, looking up into the starry sky is an activity I enjoyed since childhood,” she continues. “Switching from daytime to nighttime photography was a natural progression and was a great way to expand my skillset and gave me the opportunity to create unique images.”

Tacheney explores whatever themes are on her mind at a given time, often dictated by location, weather, the season and whether she has models to create a narrative. “Coming from a culturally rich background, it became important to me to capture the beauty of my people and share it with the rest of the world. I find it more challenging and gratifying to create images that come from a storytelling aspect. My goal is to create images that have crucial meaning to my people and is appealing to my viewers on a deeper level.”

See More ptacheney.artspan.com

Sarah Sense (Chitimacha/Choctaw)
www.sarahsense.com

Hinushi is a series of landscape photographs of ancestral homelands woven through colonial maps of the Mississippi River, Gulf of Mexico and Choctaw allotment land by Sarah Sense (Chitimacha / Choctaw). “After removal from their ancestral land, Choctaws suffered a long walk to ‘Indian Territory’ or what is now called Oklahoma. Woven together are [1920] maps from Oil News woven through Broken Bow landscapes, where our family was relocated. Choctaw basket patterns from my Grandma Chillie’s basket of sun and stars are woven through these maps, joining the land with the colonial maps as an act of reclamation,” explains Sense. “…This process of weaving together past, present, and future broadens the visual experience to something that is felt and not seen, bringing spirituality into the works.”

Matika Wilbur (Swinomish/Tulalip)
www.matikawilbur.com

Created by Matika Wilbur, Project 562 is a multi-year, national photography project dedicated to photographing over 562 federally recognized Tribes, urban Native communities, Tribes fighting for federal recognition and Indigenous role models across the United States, resulting in an unprecedented repository of imagery and oral histories that accurately portrays contemporary Native Americans. Pictured here is Ethan Petticrew (Unangax), executive director of Cook Inlet Native Head Start, dancing at Beluga Point, Alaska. “I am changing the way we see Native America,” says Wilbur. “I’ve photographed 400-plus Tribes in the U.S, delivered keynotes, museum shows, curricula, publications and podcasts to eradicate archaic, insidious, racist invisibility and dismissal of Native Peoples via myriad creative storytelling and advocacy.”

Marjorie Skidders (Mohawk)
www.ohiatonkwa.com

Marjorie Kaniehtonkie Skidders is a member of the Bear Clan of the Mohawk of Akwesasne. She has come full circle in her career as an artist, starting out with a bachelor’s degree in art and turning that into a 25-year career in education as a teacher, director, Indigenous content curriculum writer and as a school principal. Driven by a desire to capturing contemporary Haudenosaunee and other First Nation and Indigenous peoples, she recently traveled to Nunavut, Canada, to photograph Inuit dancers and drummers. “I try and capture life as contemporary-traditional Kaniekehaka/Mohawk people, using mostly family members as my subjects, dressed in our traditional clothing and photographed in everyday settings, showing we are still here.”