The Newark Museum displayed an exhibition and a planetarium with a story. Both artworks involved identity, home, personal narrative, and mythology. The exhibition is called, “Wendy Red Star”, it is about the artist’s ancestors, family, and culture that is Native American. It was about the Crow culture and the artist herself is apart of that culture. Star knew who these people were and she wanted to showcase them as real human beings who have history. A history that she wanted the viewers to know about and not view them as a different specie. In the exhibition, it showcased an installation called, “Map of the Allotted Lands of the Crow Reservation, Montana-A Tribute to Many Good Women”, it had recent pictures of where native women standing on their ancestral land plots that are located in the Crow Reservation. The purpose of images being scattered all over the map is because the General Allotment Act of 1887. The U.S. divided the Indian's land into a government system that were controlled by men at the time. The materials that were used was vinyl and graphite on wall with transparencies. There was another artwork that was called, “Family Portrait Series”, it involved her family members that were in the Crow and Indian communities. The design of this piece is multiple colorful quilts and how authentic it is from her culture. Some members were wearing traditional headpieces and clothing in the photos. I noticed in another room there was wall filled with images that were framed and it appeared to be more Crow figures that were in tribe lands and it was titled as, “1880 Crow Peace Delegation & Diplomats of the Crow Nation, 1873”. Star also wrote in red ink of notations that mentioned her examination of each individual and historical facts of the Crow Delegations. All figures appeared to be dressed in their traditional clothing that is draped around their bodies.
In the planetarium there was an installation that showcased a story that was titled as, “Skywriters & Constellations”, by Kambui Olujimi. It had shown lithographic prints of figures that were apart of the story. What was presented was an animated collage that showed time and space. The story related to contemporary mythology that dealt with personal pasts and events that revolves around the current. In the beginning it had the everyone in the room to see the stars and it presented the title by connecting the dots, as if it was an constellation. Viewing the whole story felt there was so much going on. So many images of himself and other women that were involved. Olujimi has work very spaced out which shows his interest in astrology and how space works.
He had images of the sky, figures, streets, and other objects that were man made. It had figures that were male and female. Even creatures were included in the space and the colors of the presentation were saturated in such a dark space. The story was originally based off of Olujimi’s, “Wayward North”, project that started in the New York gallery. This is a new beginning for planetarium's to be used as. In my experience, I have never seen an animated collage in a planetarium. I only seen visuals of space that had information from those who have been to space and studied the science behind it. I feel Olujimi’s project was an experimentation on what planetariums could be showcasing now.
Both of these artworks, Wendy Red Star and Kambui Olujimi’s have similarities. They both respond to mythology by telling folktales and having culture relating to the presentation. Through their works they both represent figures that are either in traditional clothing or in their space own space that represent their culture. In Star’s it was about natives who were in the Crow region, she mentioned their history and presented her culture that had her ancestors and people now that are still apart of the culture. For Olujimi’s, it had modern day aspects that displayed events that were in a environment that he grown up in which was Brooklyn, New York and it circled around people he was around with. These works relate to my self portrait because I am hispanic and we have our own culture. It involves what goes around in my space and environment just like these two artists. Everyone has a culture and were raised differently which is why we have mythology. I would like to mention what my life is like and show my environment and those who are dear to me as well. Display the things that relate to my identity, basically who I am. For my case, my parents both come from Honduras but once they came to the United States, they did not show the Honduran culture to me. I only witnessed the foods they eat and what dances they do over there. I never experienced the ‘traditional’ clothing or things that can showed me it was part of the culture.
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