Myths, Home and Self-Portraits

During our trip to The Newark Art Museum, we explored themes such as identity, personal narrative, and mythology. The exhibition by Wendy Red Star is centered around Native American Identity and culture; the planetarium show by Kambui Olujimi uses mythology with a dystopian background to explore identity.

Wendy Red Star ’s exhibition A Scratch on the Earth showcases the Crow tribe and the relationships between culture, class, race, and gender. In one of her pieces, Map of the Allotted Lands of the Crow Reservation, Montana -- A tribute to Many Good Women,  Red Star presents how gender roles were switched after the General Allotment Act, going from a culture where women were the head of the family to men. This map is meant to honor their matrilineal ancestors who were displaced for a patriarchal structure. The women on the map are wearing traditional dresses and are specifically placed on the map to where they had historical ties to.
In another piece, Four Seasons,  she focuses on Identity and her native American culture. Red Star sits on the ground staring at the camera, she’s dressed in traditional clothing and has a blown up animal next to her. It feels too perfect and glamours. She is challenging the idea of what people perceive when they think of Native culture. She has provided the viewer with beautiful yet fake scenery, and the animal is a balloon. It feels as if she’s poking fun of what people think is her identity.

In Kambui Olujimi short movie, Skywriters & Constellations, he has taken abstract art along with mythology to create a confusing yet beautiful piece of work. The film overall was hard to understand, it jumped from one event to the other without an explanation or any sort of conclusion. The voice that was narrating the film wasn’t clear, and it felt as if Olujimi wasn’t providing the whole story. This short film comes from Olujimi’s book titled Wayward North, and it revolves around mythology. He states, “[Mythology] it is a translator establishing common ground, spanning cultural and generational divisions….The mythological has the ability to connect the present, future, and past together in a single chord.” In the film, he has brought ideas and events happening today, like protests and relationships and has placed them in a fictional world he has created. He is providing myths of today through his work.

Both these artist are using myths to create a social role. Red Star uses myths to engage viewers in her culture and tell the stories of her people, once again going back to the map, she is displaying the narratives of the women in her culture. Olujimi uses myths to bring people together and to combine fiction with reality. He also uses myths as a visual language, his figures of people are transformed into mythological characters.

In terms of my self-portrait, I think myths, or more precisely, folklore is important to my culture.  However, I’m not sure if it has impacted me at a grand scale to make me realize of its importance. What I did enjoy was how Wendy Red Star used myths not in the traditional sense but more as a commentary. I think if I were to use myths it would be more as a social comment and be more intended for the viewer than myself.