ABORIGINAL Australian art, PHOTOGRAPHY exhibitions, INDIGENOUS women, MUSEUMS, WOMEN artists
Abstract
This paper critiques the visual conventions applied to the photography of ethnographic museum collection objects. To "think photographically" in a museum collection, I draw a productive parallel between my fieldwork with Indigenous women artists in central Australia, and photography of poorly documented museum collection objects. I explore the presence of an intersubjective affective gaze in the central Australian Indigenous art works which is amplified through photography. This resistance inspired an experimental exhibition entailing photography of sculptural museum objects with faces. The exhibit's aim was to resocialize these objects into the present through photographs of them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
PHOTOGRAPHY exhibitions, ART exhibitions, ART & anthropology, MATERIAL culture, ART & photography
Abstract
The projects presented in Ethnographic Terminalia 2010: New Orleans-27 Works contextualize each work within the 2010 exhibition installed in New Orleans at the Du Mois Gallery. The summary of each project in this article captures the methodology of research that informs the conversation between art and anthropology, as well as demonstrating the full scope of the exhibition that includes works from film to photography, material culture, installation, and participatory works. Artists' bios are coupled with their own commentary on the nuanced details of how the projects relate to the discourses of art and anthropology. This article is also used to situate the curatorial goals of the Ethnographic Terminalia collective to move beyond the exhibition catalog in order to archive the project in an alternative form. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]