2024-04-23
The myth of Disney's Pocahontas refers to the romanticization of colonial history. The film's plot, although based on true events, overlooks many important issues, reinforcing stereotypes about Native Americans and the expansion into the "Wild West." The damaging narrative on this topic is also reproduced by the media, in which the indigenous people of America are often portrayed in a clichéd manner. Wendy Red Star, a multimedia artist who is descended from an Apsàalooke Native American tribe, decolonizes this image by critiquing the myth of savior colonizers whose actions are justified by "Divine Destiny."
The cultural heritage of the Apsàalooke tribe has been a major influence on Wendy Red Star's emerging personality, identity consciousness, and artistic sensibility. The artist grew up on the Apsàalooke tribe's reservation in Montana, where she lived until the age of eighteen. Afterwards, she began college, educating herself in art and the Native Americans studies. The art of Wendy Red Star is a variety of media, from sculpture and painting, photography, and performance, to fashion design and textile art.
Wendy Red Star's art is intriguing in its authenticity and witty humor, with which the artist deconstructs the mythmaking images of Native Americans unfortunately still observable in many cultural texts. This much-needed artistic voice frankly critiques the romantic archetypes with which America's first inhabitants are identified, prompts audiences to reflect on and reevaluate their own views of history, and asks challenging questions about the essence of the identity of the first Americans.
The "Four Seasons" series consists of four photographs. Each of them depicts Wendy Red Star on an artificial background. The photographs were inspired by the artist's observations on how Native American history and culture is presented in museum institutions. The starting point for Wendy's idea was the hyper-realistic installations she saw at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History. The artist's project draws attention to the artificiality of the setting, which is contrasted with her own presence, demonstrating the reality of her existence as a representative of the Apsàalooke tribe.