In the United States, there are three types of reserved federal lands: military, public, and Indian (Bureau of Indian Affairs 2017). The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is responsible for providing housing and assistance to Indian Reservations across the country. These post-Trail of Tears reservations were the result of the 1851 Indian Appropriations Act (History.com Editors 2023) – an attempt to control Indigenous peoples and their land by moving them to specific pieces of government-funded land. The goal was Western expansion and Native Americans stood in the way of that. As a result, these tribes were forced out of their customs and traditions and were told that the government would take care of them in this “temporary” transitional phase of life. Little did they know that these communities would be trapped on these reservations and that escaping could be a grave mistake (Red Road Project 2024). Almost 200 years after this forced displacement, these reservations are still upheld by HUD, but little has changed in terms of quality of life for the people who live on them. Many reservations are overcrowded and impoverished with little access to shopping centers, let alone access to healthcare, treatment or addiction, or mental health resources.
Indian reservations are considered contested landscapes because there is an ongoing debate about what the government’s intentions were when they chose to control tribes in this way, as well as what continues to happen to these dwindling groups of people when HUD refuses to acknowledge the devastation happening in these homes. To this day, the Indian Affairs section of the official website of the U.S. Department of the Interior does not mention the effects of the displacement of Native Americans. Whoever wrote the information on the website doubles down on the origin of reservations by stating that the purpose of these settlements is “an area of land reserved for a tribe or tribes under treaty or other agreement with the United States…where the federal government holds title to the land in trust on behalf of the tribe” (Bureau of Indian Affairs 2017). Not only is this misleading, but it paints a very different picture of what we know to be true in terms of hostility towards Indigenous people throughout the history of America.
In the last 100 years or so, a growing number of Indigenous artists, like Juane Quick-to-See-Smith and James Luna, are using their creative talents to spread a visual message about the realities of what it means to be a Native American. Wendy Red Star, an Apsáalooke (Crow) artist from Montana, grew up in Crow Reservation life. On October 1st, it was announced that she is the recipient of the 2024 MacArthur Fellowship– this is a huge deal in the world of art and should signal in our minds she has something intensely important to say. Her work heavily emphasizes the colonial ideas of what it means to be an Indigenous person versus the reality of what it has become. These are some of the least celebrated people in the United States, they were made to be forgotten in the new age of America.
My Home is Where My Tipi Sits is a series of five classifications of Crow Reservation life: broken down “rez” (reservation) cars, sweat lodges, brightly colored government housing, churches, and signs. The title of the work is a statement in and of itself about the state of this mass disruption of cultural communities. Sometimes home is not where the heart is, especially when it feels like “home” is attached to centuries of unkept promises from people in power. Interestingly, while it feels like this mandatory assimilation of Indigenous people strips tribes of their individuality, each image in the grid was chosen for what makes it stand out. It recontextualizes the effects of colonization by isolating fonts on road signs, colors of houses, spray-painted x’s, and busted windows on cars. When asked about why she chooses to highlight this tribal territory, she states, “...these are my people. This is my community. This is my family, and these are their homes and lives” (Red Star 2024).
My Home Is Where My Tipi Sits (Rez Cars), 2011
Series of 5 Archival pigment prints, 52 x 72 inches each
Edition of 4
My Home Is Where My Tipi Sits (Signs), 2011
Series of 5 Archival pigment prints, 52 x 72 inches each
Edition of 4
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