Joe Harjo

Indian Removal Act I: American Progress is the first part of a three-part exhibition series that delves into the historical and contemporary issues that have profoundly affected Native American communities, our land, our narratives, and our pursuit of prosperous futures. The title of this body of work derives from the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcibly displaced Native nations – including my own, the Muscogee nation – to “unsettled” lands west of the Mississippi River. Through addressing the current misrepresentations, homogenization, and undervaluation of Native culture, the work brings visibility to and emphasizes Native growth, contributions, resourcefulness, adaptability, and our existence within contemporary spaces.

Indian Removal Act I: American Progress focuses on Manifest Destiny, a 19th-century belief held by many Americans that the United States was destined to expand across the North American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This ideology had a profound and negative impact on Native American people, and Manifest Destiny resulted in land displacement, violent conflicts, loss of cultural heritage, treaty violations, and genocide. The sculptures, video installations, large-scale text pieces, photographs, and textile work speaks against the disappearing and erasing of Native people, our histories, our lives as we live them, and our futures.

Indian Removal Act II: And She Was is the second part of a three-part exhibition series that looks at historical and contemporary issues impacting Native American communities. The title takes its name from the Indian Removal Act of 1830 which forcibly relocated tribes to land west of the Mississippi not yet settled by colonists or within established state borders. And She Was references the shift from matriarchal to patriarchal structures within certain Native American communities, a form of Indian removal and a consequence of European colonization and the imposition of Christianity.

 I am scrutinizing the historical enactments of “Dum Diversas” and “Romanus Pontifex,” 15th century papal bulls issued by Pope Nicholas V. These bulls, along with others that followed, provided a religious and legal structure for engaging in enslavement and the colonization of non-Christian people/territories. The justification for such actions was rooted in the belief that non-Christians should be enslaved or subjugated as part of the Christian mission to spread their faith. The work examines how these documents initiated the profound shift from matriarchal to patriarchal structures within Native American communities as influenced by Christianity.

 Native heritage is embedded in our maternal lineage, and this transition had profound effects on Native women, altering their familial and communal roles and their social standing. Indian Removal Act II: And She Was recognizes and honors the impact that Native women have had on shaping our communities and the resilience of women who have endured systemic injustices, including forced sterilization, a prevalence of missing and murdered cases, high rates of sexual violence, vulnerability to human trafficking, unequal healthcare access, criminalization within the justice system, environmental injustices, educational disparities, and cultural appropriation -- all of which are forms of Indian removal.

 The broader context surveys the exploitation of Native communities and their bodies, as well as the Indian removal process influenced by Christianity. The introduction of patriarchal systems posed burdensome challenges for Native American communities. The exhibition emphasizes this shift, illustrating how it contributed to the perpetuation of colonization, enslavement, and exploitation and shedding light on the profound impact of these developments on Native lives, land, and traditions.

 Indian Removal Act II: And She Was looks forward into the trajectory of Native American communities, emphasizing the role of women in shaping our collective future with confidence, resilience, grace, and empathy. The work addresses the cyclical nature of life and time, drawing inspiration from the natural world and envisioning a future empowered by the knowledge, voices, and agency of women.

The Only Certain Way is a collection of works that speak to the forced assimilation of Indigenous Peoples to Christianity. The 16th century Spanish explorer and conqueror Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca kept a journal of his experiences as the first European to step foot in the Southwest. Therein he is quoted saying, in reference to religious conversion and assimilation, Indians "must be won by kindness, the only certain way.” Kindness was thus weaponized as a tool against Natives in order to shift their beliefs.

The Only Certain Way uncovers the lack of visibility of Native American culture, identity and lived experience, due to both the absence of proper representation in mainstream culture and the undermining of Native belief systems by way of mistrust and deceit veiled in sympathy and salvation. The complex and undeniable relationship between Native history and United States history exposes the ways tribal identity has been dismantled, grouped and homogenized to conceal diverse collections of individuals and communities. The works in the exhibition questions the religious belief systems still so intricately woven into past generations—the results of being stripped of spiritual practice and tradition. Forced colonization and assimilation to Christian-based religions led to a century of whitewashing culture and customs and removing access to ancestors and their omnipresent spirits.

I am interested in identifying the line between the ideas and religious notions that have been forced upon Natives and the resulting adaptations of non-Native customs. Assimilation creates a crisis of identity and strips bare inherent beliefs, creating a base upon with to build a new system of faith. This disruption of self, brought on by conversion, is then only remedied by the promises of “truth” made by Christianity. The sculptures, photographs, prints and videos in the exhibition visualize the historical divide between acceptance and resistance, speaking to what is forced upon as opposed to what is created as a response.

*Other performance prints in the series (not shown) include:

Indian Holding a Weapon (Love)

Indian Holding a Weapon (Promise)

Indian Holding a Weapon (Apology)

Indian Holding a Weapon (Medicine)

Indian Holding a Weapon (DNA)

Prints recording a contemporary Indian, myself, carrying out many of the same routines and rituals as the majority of Americans in the 21st century (taking a shower, watching porn…etc.) and commenting on aspects of the universality of contemporary social identity in the United States. 

This work incorporates narratives of perception, misinformed stereotypes, false imagery, representation and identity, and the commodification of Native American Indian culture.

Blood Quantum Physics, questions the current use of blood quantum policies (CDIB) that determine Native heritage by the ratio of “Indian” to “Non-Indian” blood. As a member of the Muscogee (Creek) tribe of Oklahoma, I am diagnosed with a 17/32 degree of Indian blood. The ladders are a metaphor for our DNA and more specifically as a representation of the quantity of Indian blood I possess. The noose, representing the blood quantum policies, questions the ramifications of their usage in determining who can and cannot be Indian. The policy creates an impasse, gradually decreasing ratios by generation and inevitably suffocating lineage. 

Portraits of an Indians uses the big game hunters’ approach by capturing, killing and presenting false Indian imagery and the commodification of culture and by rendering it defeated, dead and unusable. 

Nocturnal Myths, Lies & Other Stories, a collection of theatrical tableau photographs, confronts and contextualizes the contemporary Native American in real time through a series of unresolved situations.  The scenes are captured from a voyeuristic standpoint, allowing the viewer to use his/her own empirical reasoning for the resolution of a scene.  

The diptych The Royal King Joseph I vs. The Noble Chief Joseph calls upon the viewers’ subjectivity and preconceived notions based on the same information presented differently in order to misconstrue perception. The diptych also relies on the use of language and explores how it has been used historically to place or classicize people, such as referring to a group as a tribe rather than a nation, or brave vs. heroic, or in this case specifically royal vs. noble. The term “versus” suggests that one or the other must be accurate when in fact both depictions are considered to be false imagery. The viewer is left to contemplate which one is preferable based on those preconceived notions and how visual culture functions.

An online campaign challenging the expected social identity of a Native American traversing everyday life. #ThisIsNotAnIndian

This work confronts what is societally considered Native American Indian and what is not. The work challenges the places within society’s mind where Indians are allowed and expected to exist, as well as the visual notion of what the Indian should look like in those places. 

The works presented as Natural History Museum Artifacts are handmade silver gelatin photographs of cheaply made costume jewelry typically sold in Halloween shops, which are used to dress up as Indians. The titles of the works reflect the actual names, dates and places of origin given by the manufacturers.

The photographs are displayed as artifacts in custom made museum-like cases. They are presented “curly” or “un-flattened” to convey a sense of objectification of the precious artifact, which is in fact the photographic print and not the living people or living culture referenced in the costume jewelry.

The locked museum-like cases act as a metaphor for locking in an idealized vision of Native American people and their many different cultures, safe from change, progression, advancement, growth and the future.

Other works in the series are staged tableau photographs placing Indians in unexpected places and scenarios. 

A grid of 12 self-portraits capturing a durational performance expressing the subtle shifts in demeanor which define much of the historical photographic identity of Native Americans as an unflinching (uncivilized) and proud (savage) people to be objectified.