Breaking the frame: Ways of Reading Native Photography

Yvonne Tiger, M.A., M.A.
Yvonne is an Adjunct Faculty Member of Native American Studies at MSU-Northern. Her Master’s thesis in History was focused on early American Indian Boarding School history and Federal Boarding School policy. Her Native American Studies Master’s degree was focused on Native American Art History and Curating. She is a contributing writer to First American Art Magazine.

Breaking the frame: Ways of Reading Native Photography  
My OER will showcase the use of Native American photography as a means of enabling students to connect with historical and contemporary Native issues. Using specific in-class exercises as examples I will show how Native photography addresses issues of racial identity, stereotypes, the sexualizing of Native bodies, and Native American history. I will discuss how the writing of the formal analysis of this photography as art also enables students to engage with the art through a reading that elucidates the contemporary lives of Native individuals and communities. The OER will show how interactive exploration of artistic meaning, and the messages therein, in Native photography leads to increased student intellectual awareness and understanding of the indigenous world around them.

Access the OER document here: