{"id":654,"date":"2025-10-24T19:11:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/?p=654"},"modified":"2025-10-24T20:23:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T20:23:03","slug":"jeremy-dennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/2025\/10\/24\/jeremy-dennis\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeremy Dennis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Community\/Nation\/Tribe:<\/strong> enrolled Tribal Member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Materials\/Processes:<\/strong> digital photography, video, installation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Themes:<\/strong> Indigenous identity, culture, and assimilation<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Online Resources:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeremynative.com\/\">https:\/\/www.jeremynative.com\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Statements\/Bios in Artists&#8217; Words:<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My photography explores indigenous identity, cultural assimilation, and the ancestral traditional practices of my tribe, the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Though science has solved many questions about natural phenomena, questions of identity are more abstract, the answers more nuanced. My work is a means of examining my identity and the identity of my community, specifically the unique experience of living on a sovereign Indian reservation and the problems we face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Digital photography lets me create cinematic images. Nowhere have indigenous people been more poorly misrepresented than in American movies. My images question and disrupt the post-colonial narrative that dominates in film and media and results in damaging stereotypes, such as the \u201cnoble savage\u201d depictions in Disney\u2019s Pocahontas. As racial divisions and tensions reach a nationwide fever pitch, it\u2019s more important to me than ever to offer a complex and compelling representation of indigenous people. I like making use of the cinema\u2019s tools, the same ones directors have always turned against us (curiously familiar representations, clothing that makes a statement, pleasing lighting), to create conversations about uncomfortable aspects of post-colonialism. For example, in my 2016 project, \u201cNothing Happened Here,\u201d stylized portraits of non-indigenous people impaled by arrows symbolize, in a playful way, the \u201cwhite guilt\u201d many Americans have carried through generations, and the inconvenience of co-existing with people their ancestors tried to destroy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By looking to the past, I trace issues that plague indigenous communities back to their source. For example, research for my ongoing project \u201cOn This Site\u201d entailed studying archaeological and anthropological records, oral stories, and newspaper archives. The resulting landscape photography honors Shinnecock\u2019s 10,000-plus years\u2019 presence in Long Island, New York. Working on that collection has left me with a better understanding of how centuries of treaties, land grabs, and colonialist efforts to white-wash indigenous communities have led to our resilience, our ways of interacting with our environment, and the constant struggle to maintain our autonomy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Despite four hundred years of colonization, we remain anchored to our land by our ancient stories. The indigenous mythology that influences my photography grants me access to the minds of my ancestors, including the value they placed on our sacred lands. By outfitting and arranging models to depict those myths, I strive to continue my ancestors\u2019 tradition of storytelling and showcase the sanctity of our land, elevating its worth beyond a prize for the highest bidder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(<a href=\"https:\/\/www.jeremynative.com\/about\/\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/www.danielleboyer.org\/inventions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">source<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Community\/Nation\/Tribe: enrolled Tribal Member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation Materials\/Processes: digital photography, video, installation Themes: Indigenous identity, culture, and assimilation Online Resources: Statements\/Bios in Artists&#8217; Words: My photography explores indigenous identity, cultural assimilation, and the ancestral traditional practices of my tribe, the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Though science has solved many questions about natural phenomena, questions&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":655,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,13,22,35,43,47,6,34,81,57,54,5,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contemporary-life","category-digital-imagery","category-digital-photography","category-history","category-identity","category-indigenous-futurity","category-installation","category-land","category-shinnecock","category-sovereignty","category-survivance","category-video","category-visibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":656,"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654\/revisions\/656"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gildedgreen.com\/indigital\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}