Document Type
Article
Abstract
[First paragraph]
Reflected in one's ancestry is the weight of history - histories that are as much about the legacies of family as they are about the self. By tracing a line back, whether straight or selective, ancestries offer a unique lens through which to view and, in turn, portray the self. Artists have long explored their ancestral backgrounds, homelands, and stories as inspiration for their artwork; however, it is Indigenous artists in particular who have focused on ancestry as a productive discourse for self-representation, and more importantly, as a potent symbol of Indigenous survivance. This notion, originally proposed by Anishinaabe scholar Gerald Vizenor, emphasizes the unequivocal survival of Indigenous peoples despite centuries of colonization. This essay concentrates on a specific body of photographic work by early career artist Meryl McMaster who uses composite self-portraits in order to create an ancestry of Indigenous pictorial resistance.
Repository Citation
Walker, Ellyn. "Representing the Self through Ancestry: Meryl McMaster's Ancestral Portraits." Reconstruction: Studies in Contemporary Culture vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, pp. 1–7. https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol15/iss1/5