Why this Indigenous winter scene is not what it seems

Curtis saw his mission as “documenting what he thought of as ‘a dying race’,” Cross tells the BBC. He cropped out from his photos “signs of modernity” such as clocks, she says, serving the illusion that Indigenous people remain stopped in time, living only in the past. In perpetuating the myth of the “Vanishing Indian”, she says, Curtis erased the “reality” that Indigenous people “have adapted to new technologies throughout time”.  

In contrast, by making herself the main subject in each of her photographic seasons, Red Crow is asserting the continuing survival and presence of all Indigenous people, says Cross. “By wearing her tribal regalia, she is saying, ‘We’re here, we’re not going anywhere. And what she wears is not a costume, not a stereotype, it is part of a history that connects to her ancestors and her culture and will continue to do so into the future.”  

Still, Red Star regards Curtis and his relationship to Native people as complex. “His ability to photograph the different communities came through his interpreters, who were themselves tribal members… From my community he had Alexander Upshaw… So, when I look at Curtis’s photos now,” she says, she thinks about Upshaw.  

For Red Star, satire is a tool. Her multimedia works synthesise photography, collage, sculpture and historical artifacts. They appear in the collections of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and Museum of Modern Art, among other institutions, and in 2024 she was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship.