CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 11/26/2021

In celebration of Native American Heritage Day

Featured image, from Steidl’s recent monograph on Ontario-based Native American photographer Shelley Niro, is titled “Ancestors” from the series M: Stories of Women, 2011. Published on the occasion of the artist’s recent Scotiabank Photography Award, this volume does a remarkable job of conveying the artist’s open, transgressive, matriarchal ethos with wit, irony and humor. The M series addresses the pre-modern Haudenosaunee story of a pregnant Skywoman who finds herself exiled from the night sky. It's the "story of women who live in this world,” Niro writes. “The depiction of Native women in Canada is deplorable. Often stories are bleak and serve only one purpose, to perpetuate Native women as losers and non-producers, often taking away from the common good of this society.… These stories are pulled and spread out for daily digestion depending on the political sway and often used as a divergent from the real issue.… My goal is to create another kind of image of Native North American women. Our legacy starts in the Skyworld. Through an act of accident, we are now inhabiting a world where we faced those everyday challenges and have found ways to thrive and survive.… I give thanks to my ancestors every day. I connect with them through my own imagination. The forward thinking of invention and the inclusion of the universe makes being a part of this world doable and positive. Everyone has their own story.”