New UO photo collections

Zig Jackson photographs URI: zig-jackson-ph401

Zig Jackson (b.1957- ) is a Native artist and photographer who grew up on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. He is an enrolled member of the Three Affiliated Tribes (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) whose work includes portraiture and documentary photography depicting traditional indigenous culture.

This collection (1990-2009) contains 89 black and white prints taken at Indian reservations and other regions across the United States. The prints feature documentary photography of contemporary Native American communities and events, and offer commentary on Indian identity, land rights, sovereignty, representation, and tribal traditions. Prints show Native American ceremonies, Indian reservations, sacred sites, lodges, monuments, tourism, souvenir booths, food stands, road signs, government buildings, and urban areas.

As an indigenous artist, Jackson uses photography to document the ever-changing landscape of contemporary Native America—from city to reservation to casino to oil country—and deconstruct the common myths and misconceptions that persist to the present day. Although people are inundated with images of Native Americans in the media and consumer society, Jackson observes that Indians still remain a mystery to mainstream America. Many continue to see Native Americans as “a people forgotten by time”—the Noble Savage,” stoic warrior, buckskin-clad maiden, or all-knowing shaman. Jackson’s images reveal a far different reality—one of a people in transition, at once struggling and thriving in the midst of a constantly changing technological world.

John Adair Black Lives Matter protest photographs URI: john-adair-ph397

Update: THIS COLLECTION NEEDS TO BE LOCKED DOWN TO UO ONLY.

John Adair (b.1990- ) is a photographer and visual storyteller. He received a Black Lives Matter Artist Award for his 2021 project BLKGLD, a series of black and white portraits of his family members, which was featured at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Among photo series projects including “Scars” and “The Hunt,” he has also created photo documentaries such as “Trucker Diaries,” which features documentary photography of Adair’s journey as a truck driver.

This collection (2020-2021) consists of 169 documentary photographs taken during the 2020-2021 Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests and marches in Eugene, Oregon. Protests began in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 26, 2020 following the murder of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African American man, during an arrest by former police officer, Derek Chauvin. During the arrest, Chauvin knelt on Floyd's neck for 9 minutes and 29 seconds as three other officers looked on and prevented passers-by from intervening.

Civil unrest and protests quickly emerged as part of international reactions to police brutality and racism. An estimated 15 to 26 million people across 2,000 cities and towns in over 60 countries participated in demonstrations to support the BLM movement. As of 2021, the George Floyd protests are the largest in U.S. history.

Adair’s photographs show local BLM protest and march participants in Eugene, Oregon. Subjects of images include march leaders, protestors, protest signs, and counter-protestors. Some series include confrontations with counter-protestors, including counter-protestors from the Blue Lives Matter countermovement and supporters of former president Donald Trump.

Slideshow images: PH397_do001_019: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51w8415 PH397_do001_024: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51w843q PH397_do002_010: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51w803r PH397_do005_005:https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51w8237 PH397_do006_007: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51w828m

Pamela J. Peters Standing Rock Protest photographs (PH 398)

URI: pamela-peters-ph398

Pamela J. Peters is a Diné multimedia artist specializing in filmmaking, photography, and multimedia documentaries. Now living in Los Angeles California, Peters was born in Shiprock, New Mexico on the Navajo (Diné) Nation. She uses her Diné first clan, Tátchii’nii clan (Red Running into the Water) to identify her photography work.

This collection contains 27 documentary photographic prints taken during the 2016 protests of the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) construction across the northern United States. Approved construction for DAPL resulted in the pipeline running through the Standing Rock Reservation of the Great Sioux Nation (Očhéthi Šakówiŋ), a Native American reservation located across the North and South Dakota borders.

In response to the DAPL project’s threats to local water supplies and sacred sites, water protectors from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe were joined in protest by other Native and non-Native allies. Peters’ photos show grassroots opposition and signs of dissent placed on Standing Rock Reservation land where the DAPL was approved for construction. In doing so, her work captures images of water protectors defending the Sioux Nation’s water rights and Indigenous sovereignty through protest.

Peters’ defines her multimedia work as “Indigenous Realism,” using a socially conscious approach to explore, reimagine, and present the diverse lives of contemporary Native Americans/American Indians. Through incorporating the unique historical experiences of American Indians and sovereign Indian nations, Peters’ aim is to disrupt clichéd portrayals and redefine views of Indian life and tribal identity in the mainstream media.

slideshow images: PH398_b001_f001_001: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51vs898 PH398_b001_f001_003: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51vs95d PH398_b001_f001_005: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51vs97z PH398_b001_f001_006: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51vs987 PH398_b001_f002_003: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51vs901 PH398_b001_f002_007: https://oregondigital.org/reviewer/oregondigital:zk51vs944

OregonDigital / oregondigital

New UO photo collections #1540